Impacts of soil stabilization treatments on reducing soil loss and runoff in cutslope of forest roads in Hyrcanian forests

Cutslopes are the most important source of sediment among other parts of forest roads network. A significant amount of runoff and sediment is observed in Hyrcanian forests because of the fine-textured soil. This study investigated the effectiveness of three treatments of jute cover (JC), mulch cover (MC) and bare cutslope as control plots (CP) under the natural rainfall condition. Two months investigation on two new and old roads with silty-clay cutslopes was done. Correlation between some of soil properties, soil loss and runoff showed that the sediment concentration was increased with increasing in soil bulk density. Runoff volume showed a significant negative correlation with the percentage of organic matter and a positive correlation with the plastic limit. With runoff volume increasing, sediment concentration and soil loss were significantly increased. Analysis of the results showed that in both new and old roads, the treatment of JC is superior. This treatment has reduced soil loss by 9.68 times compared to CP treatment. The treatment of JC compared to the MC on a new cutslope and an old one has reduced soil loss by 2.77 and 2.54 times. Also, JC have reduced soil loss by 2.67 times compared to the MC. The total cost per square meter of JC is US $ 0.21 and this amount is equivalent to $ 0.26 for the MC. According to the results, it is suggested that soil protection and bioengineering designs should be focused on the use of JC.