Who Uses Forest Roads? Has the COVID-19 Pandemics Affected Their Recreational Usage? Case Study from Central Slovakia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is an interesting concept; however, the title and the subject are a little misleading.  I would like the title to include something about use during periods between first and second lockdowns to clearly identify the where the population is from.  Secondly, is there any active forest management in the forest during these periods – that may be another costate variable that influences the results.  I did not recall the number of hectares that were being treated during the sampling period, which may influence the lockdowns.  Lastly, what were the weather records during this time.  As temperature, precipitation type and amount often influence the use of rugged forest roads. I believe that including these elements in the paper will improve it greatly.    

Author Response

Reviewer 1.

REVIEWER:The paper is an interesting concept; however, the title and the subject are a little misleading.  I would like the title to include something about use during periods between first and second lockdowns to clearly identify the where the population is from.  Secondly, is there any active forest management in the forest during these periods – that may be another costate variable that influences the results.  I did not recall the number of hectares that were being treated during the sampling period, which may influence the lockdowns.  Lastly, what were the weather records during this time.  As temperature, precipitation type and amount often influence the use of rugged forest roads. I believe that including these elements in the paper will improve it greatly.  

RESPONSE: According to the suggestion of the reviewer we changed the title of the paper as follows: Who uses forest roads? Has the COVID- 19 affected the recreational use? Case study from central Slovakia.

We added the information about the weather pattern in the examined year in the form of a figure and a table indicating the periods with lockdown and without any restrictions of inhabitant movements.

We also added the information about individual vehicles showing that there were forestry activities going on in the year as there were empty and loaded trucks recorded. Forest management was not substantially affected by lockdown as forest activities were performed outside.

The area covered in our study is 3,954 ha – area of Budča I. forest district. This information has been provided in the original manuscript (original lines 354 and 355), but we added the information in methods section, too.

We also added more detailed information about the studied roads. They are of category 1L according to the Slovak Technical Standard, which means they are paveda and can be used all year round even under unfavourable weather conditions.  

 

 

Added Figure 2. Daily air temperature in the individual periods of the year 2020

 

Added Table 1. Weather description in individual periods in the year 2020.

Period of year / Number of days of period	Weather	Number of days in period (%  of days from period)	Average temperature (°C)
Period I. /75	Snowfall	1 (1.5)	2.8
	Precipitation	10 (13.5)
	Cloudy	26 (34.7)
	Sunny	38 (50.7)
Lockdown I. /52	Snowfall	1 (1.9)	13.4
	Precipitation	1 (1.9)
	Cloudy	4 (7.7)
	Sunny	46 (88.5)
Period II. /170	Snowfall	0 (0)	18.6
	Precipitation	25 (14.7)
	Cloudy	72 (42.4)
	Sunny	73 (42.9)
Lockdown II. /69	Snowfall	5 (7.2)	3.2
	Precipitation	4 (5.8)
	Cloudy	24 (34.8)
	Sunny	36 (52.2)

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Reviewer's remarks on the article

General remark: the article is a weak case study of two forest roads, additionally based on significant methodological errors. The article requires radical changes.

1. The title of the article must be changed because it does not correspond to the presented content of the article. Is the article an analysis of changes in the traffic structure on forest roads resulting from the SARS COVID-19 pandemic? If the answer to this question is positive, the article has many shortcomings anyway.
2. The introduction requires a significant redrafting. It should contain information related to the traffic structure and legal and technical limitations in the access to forest roads for people and vehicles not related to the forest area manager and forest management.
3. How and whether it is possible to research and assume the existence of increased tourist traffic on forest roads during the lockdown period? The authors themselves list the only possible goals of movement (lines 58-60), and in the case of recreation only „…was a stay in nature within the district of permanent residence.”
4. There is no clear definition of the purpose and scope of the research. The authors at several introductory points state: we focused on the comparison of the forest road usage for recreation and operational works ”etc.
5. What is the significance of the descriptions of pavement structures on the roads for the topic of the work? The authors do not discuss the more important issue of the possibility of entering non-public roads - forest ones.
6. In line 146 of the article, there is "We recorded the passage of tourists ...". How were the journeys of cars ("personal cars") of persons performing forestry activities - commuting to the forest to work - and tourists distinguished? The same remark applies to SUV cars - all of them were considered as journeys made by forest managers. Tourists - private owners also own such cars.
7. A similar remark applies to pedestrian traffic. How human movement was distinguished and verified. It could be both a tourist and a forest worker.
8. There is no basis for using parametric statistical tests (eg ANOVA) when the distributions of the scores have not been verified.
9. The reviewer has reservations about the data in Table 1. According to the data provided in the specialist literature, it is known that timber trucks weigh more than 40t, and the weight of the truck and trailer is much higher (these are the minimum values given in the literature). Is the indicated weight of the skidder the weight of an empty or full vehicle? Sources for the adopted values have not been given so that they are as up-to-date as possible - 2020.
10. Failure to present numerical data for individual groups of vehicles and the movement of people and animals in individual periods (period I and II and lockdown 1 and 2) and seasons does not allow for the verification of data and the determination of actual differences.
11. X axis in figure 4 - Does the group "All recorded objects" also include animals?
12. Was there no truck with trailer, bus rides at the research point "B"? Incorrect statement in line 243-244.
13. Incorrectly given numbers in line 244.
14. The road load analysis is flawed and incomprehensible (notes in clause 9 apply). How the calculations were made: how many empty and how many full journeys were made for the truck and truck with trailer, and how the presence of cargo on cars with a covered cargo space was found. What kind of cars were these? The journeys related to the transport of wood also include empty driving (entering the forest to get wood).
15. Faulty division into tourist (public) driving and those related to work on a forest farm, which I wrote earlier about "personal car" and SUV car.
16. If the cars "Truck" and "Truck with trailer" are included in forest management, and timber transport is only 15.1% (line 269), then the statement in line 265 is incorrect.
17. The discussion requires radical improvement, if only because of the necessity to introduce changes in the "results" section, which will change the data for discussion. In many parts of the discussion, the results of other authors' publications (e.g. lines 340-354, 366-370) were cited too widely. It is worth mentioning that these are publications from 20-25 years ago. For the field of forest transport and for the approach to social functions of the forest, these publications are not relevant today. Some publications are quoted incorrectly and have nothing to do with the issues discussed (e.g. [37]).
18. Substantially incorrect interpretation in lines 354-356. In line 174, the total number of 4,674 objects was given, including 2,668 vehicles, but the number 4,677 was used for the calculations.
19. The discussion includes statements that have not been investigated: lines 386-395; row 399 - the destination of tourists has not been studied.
20. Incorrect conclusions in line 400-401 in relation to the text in line 268-270.
21. On what basis was the conclusion drawn in line 406: „Apart from motor vehicles, forest roads were used for recreation by many tourists and cyclists, equal to 2,350 persons per year”. Błędnie przyjęta liczba osób (2,350 osób). Wymagane jest wyjaśnienie skąd pochodzi ta wartość.
22. The article also contains errors in the descriptions of figures (e.g. Fig. 1), incorrectly (contradictory) given numbers (e.g. lines 244, 354).

Author Response

Reviewer:

Comments and Suggestions for Authors:

 

REVIEWER: The title of the article must be changed because it does not correspond to the presented content of the article. Is the article an analysis of changes in the traffic structure on forest roads resulting from the SARS COVID-19 pandemic? If the answer to this question is positive, the article has many shortcomings anyway.

REPONSE:   The paper aims to provide an overview of forest road usage in general as well as with regard to the SARS COVID-19 pandemics, which occurred during the study period and was characterised by several periods of lockdown. Hence, we changed the title of the paper to: Who uses forest roads? Has the COVID-19 pandemics affected their recreational usage? Case study from central Slovakia. We added the main goals to the text:

The main goals of the paper were to (1) evaluate transport structure on forest roads and their traffic load; (2) compare the usage of forest roads for the purposes of forest management and recreation; (3) analyse the impact of COVID-19 pandemics and the resulting periods of lockdown on the recreational use of forest roads.

 

 

 

REVIEWER: The introduction requires a significant redrafting. It should contain information related to the traffic structure and legal and technical limitations in the access to forest roads for people and vehicles not related to the forest area manager and forest management.

RESPONSE:    One of the main reasons why we performed the study and prepared the submitted paper was the lack of information about the up-to-date information of forest road usage. Moreover, in Slovakia, there is a lot of ongoing discussion how many forest roads are needed, what they are needed for. Our research wanted to examine the importance of forest roads for forest recreation. We focused on forest roads of category 1L according to the Slovak technical standard, which means that they are paved roads suitable for the operation all year round. We added this information in methods. according to the Act on forests No. 326/ 2005, vehicle access to Slovak forests is forbidden for the public without a permission issued by the Forest Administration or the forest manager.

 

REVIEWER: How and whether it is possible to research and assume the existence of increased tourist traffic on forest roads during the lockdown period? The authors themselves list the only possible goals of movement (lines 58-60), and in the case of recreation only „…was a stay in nature within the district of permanent residence.”

RESPONSE: Several cited papers (under current numbers 13, 15, 32) confirmed increased tourist traffic in forests during the lockdown periods, which justifies our hypothesis. Moreover, in Slovakia, the movement of people between districts was limited, all indoor activities (cinemas, thaetres, restaurants, shopping centres, and recreation centres) were closed. The only allowed activity was to go to the nature within the district of permanent residence, as we had stated in introduction. A number of news from around Slovakia reported increased pressure of people on nature. Based on this information, we examined if there was an increased number of tourists in the forests of our interests.  

 

REVIEWER: There is no clear definition of the purpose and scope of the research. The authors at several introductory points state: we focused on the comparison of the forest road usage for recreation and operational works ”etc.

RESPONSE:    We tried to explain it above. We added the goals at the end of the introduction.

 

REVIEWER: What is the significance of the descriptions of pavement structures on the roads for the topic of the work? The authors do not discuss the more important issue of the possibility of entering non-public roads - forest ones.

REPONSE: We introduced the detailed road structure to explain the legend and to provide a reader with the information on road quality in the investigated region. Road categories characterise their quality and the possibility to use them for recreational activities, such as cycling.

Regarding the usage of forest roads by the public we added more information into introduction: „In spite of the fact that according to the Act on forests No. 326/ 2005 [12] vehicle access to Slovak forests is forbidden for the public without a permission issued by the Forest Administration or the forest manager, the restrictions are frequently disregarded or violated. Hence, the usage of forest roads by the general public has been gradually increasing.“  

 

REVIEWER: In line 146 of the article, there is "We recorded the passage of tourists ...". How were the journeys of cars ("personal cars") of persons performing forestry activities - commuting to the forest to work - and tourists distinguished? The same remark applies to SUV cars - all of them were considered as journeys made by forest managers. Tourists - private owners also own such cars.

RESPONSE: In the case of personal cars, all occurrences were added to tourists because the forestry enterprise does not possess personal cars, while in the case of SUV cars all were assigned to forestry personnel. It is true that some mistakes could have been introduced with this approach, but a more precise method was not available as from photos it was not possible to identify the owner.

 

REVIEWER: A similar remark applies to pedestrian traffic. How human movement was distinguished and verified. It could be both a tourist and a forest worker.

RESPONSE: Distinguishing pedestrian tourists and employees was easy since we know the employees in person and they wear uniforms and/or work clothes while they are at work.

 

REVIEWER: There is no basis for using parametric statistical tests (eg ANOVA) when the distributions of the scores have not been verified.

RESPONSE: Thank you for the comment. We performed the Shapiro- Wilk test, which showed that the data were not normally distributed, since p value = 0.000 at α = 0.05 rejected H0 hypothesis. Hence, we recalculated our results and applied the Kruskal- Wallis ANOVA.

 

Figure 4. Kruskal Wallis ANOVA- comparison of median values of the daily number of recreational activities in individual seasons, p=0.000

 

 

Table: Kruskal-Walis ANOVA between recreation and season (not shown in the paper)

Dependent variable: Recreation	Kruskal- Wallis ANOVA by ranks; Recreation Independent (grouping) variable :Season Kruskal- Walis test: H (2, N= 366) = 107.4222, p =0.0000
	Valid N	Sum of ranks	Average of ranks
Winter	89	9668.00	108.6292
Spring	94	21063.00	224.0745
Summer	94	23469.50	249.6755
Autum	89	12960.50	145.6236

 

 

 

Table xy: Multiple comparison of p values between recreation in seasons

Dependent variable: Recreation	Multiple comparison of p values (bilateral). Recreation Independent (grouping) variable: Season Kruskal- Wallis test: H (3, N= 366) = 107.4222, p =0.0000
	Winter R: 108.63	Spring R:224.07	Summer R:249.68	Autum. R:145.62
Winter		0.000000	0.000000	0.118027
Spring	0.000000		0.582798	0.000003
Summer	0.000000	0.582798		0.000000
Autum	0.118027	0.000003	0.000000

* bold = statistically significant differences

 

 

 

 

Figure 3. Kruskal Wallis ANOVA- comparison of median values of the daily number of recreational activities in periods of lockdown and of unrestricted movement, p=0.000

 

 

Table: Results of Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA between recreation and periods with lockdown and with no restrictions (not shown in the paper)

 

Dependent variable: Recreation	Kruskal- Wallis ANOVA by RANKS; Recreation Independent (grouping) variable :Period Kruskal- Walis test: H (3 N= 366) = 93.74552, p =0.0000
	Valid N	Sum of ranks	Average of ranks
I. period	76	7596.00	99.9474
Lockdown I.	51	11321.00	221.9804
II. period	171	38670.00	226.1433
Lockdown II.	68	9573.50	140.7868

 

Table: Multiple comparison of p values between recreation and periods with lockdown and with no restrictions

Dependent variable: Recreation	Multiple comparison of p values (bilateral). Recreation Independent (grouping) variable: Period Kruskal- Walis test: H (3, N= 366) = 93.74552, p =0.0000
	I.period R: 99.947	Lockdown I. R:221.98	II.period R:226.14	Lockdown II. R:140.79
I.period		0.000000	0.000000	0.124510
Lockdown I.	0.000000		1.00000	0.000206
II. period	0.000000	1.00000		0.000000
Lockdown II.	0.124510	0.000206	0.000000

 

The results from non-parametric tests confirmed the results presented in the first draft of the paper.

 

REVIEWER: The reviewer has reservations about the data in Table 1. According to the data provided in the specialist literature, it is known that timber trucks weigh more than 40t, and the weight of the truck and trailer is much higher (these are the minimum values given in the literature). Is the indicated weight of the skidder the weight of an empty or full vehicle? Sources for the adopted values have not been given so that they are as up-to-date as possible - 2020.

REPONSE: Weights of individual vehicle types were derived from the weights of individual vehicles that were used for wood transport. In the case of empty single trucks we changed their mean weight from 10 t to 11.2 t, which was obtained by averaging the weights of empty single trucks recorded on the roads: single truck T 815 (13t), Praga V3S (5.470 t ), Scania R500 (15.1 t), Volvo RH12 (11.3 t). For loaded single trucks, the weight of 23.2 t was used.

In the case of empty trucks with trailers we modified the value from 15.5 t to 17.4 t, which was derived by averaging the weights of recorded trucks: Scania P450 (19.5 t), Scania G550 (21.4 t) and SCANIA G400 (11.3 t). Loaded trucks with trailers were assigned the weight of 40 t because in Slovakia the max-imum possible weight of the vehicle on the road is 40 t following the Regulation of the Eu-ropean Council no. 2015/719 from 25 April 2015, which amended the Regulation of the European Council no. 96/53 ES from 25 July 1996. We used the maximum weight because from the economical reasons there is an attempt to use the maximum possible load of vehicles. For skidders we used the mean weight of skidders (LKT 81 T, LKT 81 ITL, HSM 805 HD) without the load, because loaded skidders are forbidden to move on roads of 1L category.

 

REVIEWER: Failure to present numerical data for individual groups of vehicles and the movement of people and animals in individual periods (period I and II and lockdown 1 and 2) and seasons does not allow for the verification of data and the determination of actual differences.

RESPONSE: Data are not presented due to their extent. We will insert them in supplementary materials.

 

REVIEWER: X axis in figure 4 - Does the group "All recorded objects" also include animals?

REPONSE: No, it does not include animals. We added this information in Figure description.

 

REVIEWER: Was there no truck with trailer, bus rides at the research point "B"? Incorrect statement     in line 243-244.

REPONSE: We checked it and corrected. We corrected Figure 6 and added Table 4 and Table 5.

 

REVIEWER: Incorrectly given numbers in line 244.

REPONSE: We checked it and corrected.

 

 REVIEWER: The road load analysis is flawed and incomprehensible (notes in clause 9 apply). How the calculations were made: how many empty and how many full journeys were made for the truck and truck with trailer, and how the presence of cargo on cars with a covered cargo space was found. What kind of cars were these? The journeys related to the transport of wood also include empty driving (entering the forest to get wood).

RESPONSE: We added Table 4 and 5 to show the information of empty and full journeys. In the case of individual vehicles we recorded 2 cars with covered cargo space, one in each direction (there and back). Hence, the first journey was assigned as empty and the second as loaded.

 

REVIEWER: Faulty division into tourist (public) driving and those related to work on a forest farm, which I wrote earlier about "personal car" and SUV car.

RESPONSE: We explained our approach and assumptions above.

 

REVIEWER: If the cars "Truck" and "Truck with trailer" are included in forest management, and timber transport is only 15.1% (line 269), then the statement in line 265 is incorrect.

REPONSE: We modified the text and added „forest management activities“ as one of the reasons for forest road construction.

 

REVIEWER: The discussion requires radical improvement, if only because of the necessity to introduce changes in the "results" section, which will change the data for discussion. In many parts of the discussion, the results of other authors' publications (e.g. lines 340-354, 366-370) were cited too widely. It is worth mentioning that these are publications from 20-25 years ago. For the field of forest transport and for the approach to social functions of the forest, these publications are not relevant today. Some publications are quoted incorrectly and have nothing to do with the issues discussed (e.g. [37]).

RESPONSE: It is true that some of the references are old and the information is taken widely, however we did not find any newer publications that dealt with the analysed issues in such a detail as presented in our work. In addition, there is no such information for the Slovak Republic. We believe that the reference under the original number [37] is not used incorrectly, and in our paper we refer to its part Conclusions, Management Implications, and Future Research.

 

REVIEWER: Substantially incorrect interpretation in lines 354-356. In line 174, the total number of 4,674 objects was given, including 2,668 vehicles, but the number 4,677 was used for the calculations.

RESPONSE: Thank you, it was an incorrect calculation. We used correct numbers for the new calculation.

 

REVIEWER: The discussion includes statements that have not been investigated: lines 386-395; row 399 - the destination of tourists has not been studied.

RESPONSE: We excluded these statements.

 

REVIEWER: Incorrect conclusions in line 400-401 in relation to the text in line 268-270.

RESPONSE: We modified the text to clarify our message. The conclusions are not incorrect. The statements in the original lines 268 -270 presented only wood transport. That means that the values do not include other forestry operations.

 

REVIEWER: On what basis was the conclusion drawn in line 406: „Apart from motor vehicles, forest roads were used for recreation by many tourists and cyclists, equal to 2,350 persons per year”. Błędnie przyjęta liczba osób (2,350 osób). Wymagane jest wyjaśnienie skąd pochodzi ta wartość.

REPONSE:     Thank you for the comment. There was a mistake in the text, which we corrected to 1,284 tourists and cyclists.

 

REVIEWER: The article also contains errors in the descriptions of figures (e.g. Fig. 1), incorrectly (contradictory) given numbers (e.g. lines 244, 354).

REPONSE:     Thank you for the comment, we corrected it.

 

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Some different font sizes in the abstract and in the body of the paper.

Line 44 restructure the citation [12-14] instead of [12,13,14].

Line 79 restructure the citation [24-26] instead of [24,25,26].

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 3.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

Reviewer: Some different font sizes in the abstract and in the body of the paper.

Response: We checked and corrected them.

 

Reviewer: Line 44 restructure the citation [12-14] instead of [12,13,14].

Response: We used the method recommended by the reviewer [12-14]

 

Reviewer: Line 79 restructure the citation [24-26] instead of [24,25,26].

Response: We used the method recommended by the reviewer [24-26]

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The article has been corrected and supplemented .

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors

General comments from the Reviewer:

1. The methodology should provide a definition of a forest road to clarify whether the 462 km of roads given apply to all roads (internal forest and public roads) or to the roads belonging to USE Zvolen?
2. Please specify whether the examined road sections are approved for traffic for all, or whether there are any entry restrictions; please also provide their technical parameters.
3. Traffic volume is defined as the number of vehicles in a given road section per unit time. Please provide a more detailed description in lines 166-168.
4. The discussion needs to be expanded with newer publications (currently the discussion is based mainly on Dobre 1997), and it especially requires references to other countries (Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Poland) and the presented research.

Examples of publications on the traffic structure and road load:

FORSYTH A.R., BUBB K.A., COX M.E. 2006. Runoff, sediment loss and water quality from forest roads in a southeast Queensland coastal plain Pinus plantation. Forest Ecology and Management 221: 194-206.

NEVEČEREL H., PENTEK T., PIČMAN D., STANKIČ I. 2007. Traffic load of forest roads as a criterion for their categorization – GIS analysis. Croatian Journal of Forest Engineering 28: 27-38.

PENTEK T., PIČMAN D., POTOČNIK I., DVORŠČAK P., NEVEČEREL H. 2005. Analysis of an existing forest road network. Croatian Journal of Forest Engineering 26: 39-49.

TRZCIŃSKI G. 2002. Structure of forest traffic of centres forwording in period of privatization of forest works in forest inspectorates. Sylwan 1: 39-52.

TRZCIŃSKI G. 2001. Initial analysis of transport means utilisation in selected forest inspectorates. W: W. Grosse, T. Moskalik, P. Paschalis, J. Wippermann (reds.). FORMEC 2000 - 34 Internationales Symposium Mechanisierung der Waldarbeit.

HAJEK J., HEIN D., SWAN D. 2008. Transportation of raw forest products in northern ontario by trucks. 10th International Symposium on Heavy Vehicle Transportation Technology, Paris, France, 19-22 maja 2008r.: 377-386. (http://www.road-transport-technology.org/HVTT10/Proceeding/Papers/Papers_HVTT/ paper_26.pdf )

Grzegorz Trzciński, Tadeusz Moskalik, Rafał Wojtan. Total Weight and Axle Loads of Truck Units in the Transport of Timber Depending on the Timber Cargo. Forests 2018, 9, 164; doi:10.3390/f9040164

Trzciński G. Tymendorf Ł. Transport work for the supply of pine sawlogs to the sawmill. Forests 2020, 11(12), 1340

Tymendorf, Ł.; Trzciński, G. 2020. Driving on forest and public road in deliveries of large-size pine wood to sawmill. Sylwan 2020, 164 (8):651-662.

 

Detailed comments:

1. In line 84, as a literature item is (Ferencik et al. 2019), it should be [17].
2. Figure 1 should be more accurate and better show the test road sections.
3. The description of the literature item needs to be corrected as required by the publisher: articles, books and other sources - italics of journal titles, year in bold, correct pages of journals and the access link and date of access. According to MDPI standard.