Comparison of forest road status and policies between Korea and United States

Forest roads are essential for forest resource management. This study investigated and compared forest road and road policy data in Korea and the United States to improve future forest road policies in Korea. As compared to the United States (9.5 m/ha), Korea has much lower forest road density (3.19 m/ha) and has been actively constructing new forest roads. The Korea Forest Service leads forest road policy in Korea by providing subsidies for new road construction in non-national forests. The budget for forest roads accounted for 9.1% of the total Korea Forest Service budget in 2010 2015 and 73.5% of it was used for new road construction. Korean forest road policies have been distinctively changed over the past decades; e.g., an increase in forest road mileage in the 1990s, an increase in forest road standards in the 2000s, and an increase in the mileage of higher standard roads in the 2010s. In comparison to Korea, the United States has focused on road maintenance and road decommissioning since 2001. The budget for forest roads accounted for 2.9% of the total USDA Forest Service budget in 2011 2016 and 82.2% of it was used for operations and maintenance. Our study results suggest that forest road policies in Korea should start focusing on road maintenance and decommissioning, if needed.