Morphological changes within road incision forms in the blowdown area in the Slovak Tatra Mountains after termination of intensive forest works

Natural environment of the Slovak High Tatra Mountains, including landforms, underwent a rapid change. On November 19, 2004, following a disastrous bora, a blowdown area was formed covering 12,600 hectares, and bearing nearly 3 million cubic metres of fallen wood. Necessary forest clearing works related to damage mitigation began in spring 2005. These consisted in cutting and taking down the wood using heavy machinery and vehicles. Intensive after-disaster works led, however, to changes in the depth and density of cart roads. The aim of this paper is to estimate the direction and rate of changes within road dissections after intensive forest works. To achieve this task, the results of measurements of the depth of road incision along selected profiles situated at places differing by inclination and the type of exploitation were used. The collected data point to dominant, although minor role of accumulation processes over erosive ones, the latter being important during the period of relatively not intensive road exploitation. The most important factor contributing to such a denudation balance of gently inclined (up to 20 centigrade) roads appears to be human impact, dominating over properties of natural environment. Hence, termination of intensive road exploitation and introduction of anti-erosive measures, such as steps on steeper (more than 15 centigrade) road segments, are most effective when preventing erosion processes within the latter in the blowdown area in the Slovak High Tatra Mountains.