Influence of characteristics and extension of a forest road network on the supply cost of forest woodchips

A forest road network in northeastern Italy was explored by field investigations to evaluate the cost of covering annual demand of woodchips according to three scenarios. The first scenario (A) considered the current extent of the forest road network (mainly tractor road) and the associated qualitative characteristics; the second scenario (B) evaluated the possibility of increasing the availability of the technical amount of forest biomass by extending the forest road network by three tractor roads (3.9 km); the third scenario (C) considered the impact on woodchip supply of converting 9.3 km of tractor forest road into truck forest road. At a woodchip price of 60 € t−1, the cost–supply curve of scenario C indicated a woodchip amount of 2886 t year−1, which was 561 t year−1 greater than scenario A and 161 t year−1 greater than scenario B.