The 2001 Forest Service Roadless Rule prohibits roadbuilding in forests across an area equivalent to the combined states of New York and Maine (236 000 km2). There have been recent assertions that roads are needed to prevent fire and to keep forests healthy. Despite twenty years of ongoing forest health monitoring and the unique scope and ecological significance of this network of roadless areas, there has to date been no integrated assessment of the relationship between roads and forest health. Here, this question was addressed by synthesizing different sources of nationally consistent, longitudinal monitoring data. Agency management records show that a lack of roads has not stopped fire prevention measures; fuel management activities in roadless areas have actually been more numerous on a per-square kilometer basis than elsewhere in the National Forest System, although activities in areas with roads cover larger areas. Historical fire maps indicate that forests with and without roads have burned at similar rates since the Rule took effect. The apparent neutrality of roads with respect to fire occurrence may be due to higher rates of human caused ignition near roads offsetting advantages related to more agile positioning of fire-fighting assets. Beyond the fire dimension of forest health, analysis of over 15 000 inventory plots showed that while tree root disease is only weakly correlated with proximity to roads, roads are strongly associated with the spread of invasive plant species in national forests. Non-native plants are twice as common within 152 meters (500 feet) of a road as farther away. Speculation that eliminating road prohibitions would improve forest health is not supported by nearly twenty years of monitoring data.

中文翻译：

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无路化对森林健康的长期影响

2001 年林务局无道路规则禁止在相当于纽约州和缅因州合并面积（236 000 平方公里）的森林中修路。最近有人断言，需要道路来防止火灾和保持森林健康。尽管进行了 20 年的森林健康监测，并且这个无路区域网络具有独特的范围和生态意义，但迄今为止还没有对道路与森林健康之间的关系进行综合评估。在这里，通过综合不同来源的全国一致的纵向监测数据来解决这个问题。机构管理记录显示，缺乏道路并没有停止防火措施；无路地区的燃料管理活动实际上每平方公里比国家森林系统中的其他地方更多，尽管有道路地区的活动覆盖的面积更大。历史火灾地图表明，自该规则生效以来，有道路和没有道路的森林以相似的速度燃烧。道路相对于火灾发生的明显中立性可能是由于道路附近人为点火的比率更高，抵消了与更灵活地定位消防资产相关的优势。除了森林健康的火灾维度之外，对 15 000 多个库存地块的分析表明，虽然树根病与道路的距离只有微弱的相关性，但道路与入侵植物物种在国家森林中的传播密切相关。距离道路 152 米（500 英尺）以内的非本地植物的频率是距离更远的两倍。近 20 年的监测数据并不支持取消道路禁令将改善森林健康的推测。