The pattern of ownership imposed on the-forest landscape of Western
Oregon defines the boundaries in which differences in jurisdiction, regulation, and
land use operate. Road building is controlled by these factors, and in turn has an
effect on the cumulative effects of human utilization of the forest. This study
examined the differences in road density and slope position between areas with
different ownership patterns.
Land ownership pattern can vary according to the size, shape, and mixture
of parcels in an area. The forested lands of Western Oregon have areas with a
unique checkerboard pattern, resulting from Federal land grant programs to help
build railroads and settle the area in the late nineteenth century. These lands now
have alternating, one square mile ownership parcels, split between public agencies
such as the Bureau of Land Management or the United States Forest Service and
private timber companies. This study used analysis of variance of road density,
stream density and the ratio of the two.
A GIS system was used to sample and analyze existing data for BLM and
industrial lands, as well as Forest Service and industrial holdings. Tukey ANOVA
tests and parametric statistics were used on randomly sampled areas of each
ownership type to find out which ownership types were significantly different for
total area, and classified by slope position.
The large industrial and large BLM parcels were found to be consistently
different across most slope positions, with higher road densities found on the
industrial lands. The checkerboard of the two was shown to be intermediate
between to the two. The large Forest Service and checkerboard area were not
consistently different in total density, but they showed difference in the
distribution of roads by slope position. These checkerboard areas had more roads
in valley areas while the large USFS parcels had higher road densities on ridges