Application of engineering principles to the solution of forestry problems, such as those dealing with harvesting, forest transportation, materials handling, and mechanical silviculture, with regard to long-range environmental and economic effects.
The work that forest engineers perform varies widely throughout the United States. In the Northeast and Southeast, tasks include mechanization of harvesting, site preparation, planting, and product handling. Development and modification of machinery is an important part of this job, as is the improvement of the ability of workers to use machines in the woods, an activity known as work science. In the West, the terrain changes the job, as does the size of the trees usually harvested. Planning, design, and construction of road systems are major operational and environmental challenges in the West. Harvesting with mechanical fellers or yarding with ground skidders is often limited by tree size and terrain. Cable systems are commonly used to overcome these constraints, and the design and layout of these cable logging units require a great deal of engineering skill if logging is to be done in an economic and environmentally acceptable manner. In short, the skills possessed by forest engineers in the eastern United States parallel most closely those of the mechanical or agricultural engineer. In the West, the skills are more closely aligned with civil engineering. See also Agricultural engineering; Civil engineering; Forest and forestry; Mechanical engineering; Silviculture.
