Comparison of soil compaction recovery methods on Skid Trails

The skid trails in this study are the routs that logging has been finished. These routes should be able to infiltrate water to decrease soil erosion and hydrological cycle disturbance. In this study four treated samples were selected in order to soil recovery. The treatments were: mulching with residual slash, diagonal water bar to skid trails axis, perpendicular water bar and finally mixed treatment (includes perpendicular water bar plus residual slash). Of course there were two control samples including soil bulk density in stand and skid trail. Totally 61 soil samples were taken before and after treatments from 0 to 10 cm depth. The results showed that, only the mixed treatment causes to decrease compaction in skid trail significantly, although there was a difference between in treatments and control samples (1.06 gr/cm3) after 18 months. Also the results show that, the recovery on ruttings was more than log trace in the middle of skid trail.