BEST PRACTICES FOR RESOURCE ROAD RECLAMATION 

Scott Weston, P.Geo., M.Sc. 

Hemmera 

250-1380 Burrard Street 

Vancouver, BC V6Z 2H3 

ABSTRACT 

Access roads are a necessary part of resource extraction. Road deactivation is a simple solution to 

minimizing many of the effects of resource roads on the environment. Best practices and solutions to road 

deactivation are explored, and include seasonal deactivation, semi permanent deactivation, and permanent 

deactivation. 

Key Words: Environment, Environmental Effects, Road Deactivation, Planning 

INTRODUCTION 

Resource industries depend on access roads to move equipment, supplies and people in and resources out. 

Individually, resource roads have a relatively small footprint. Cumulatively, however, the hundreds of 

thousands of kilometres of active and abandoned roads arguably have the largest and most significant 

environmental effects on resource extraction activities. 

Best practices related to resource roads include planning to construct a road where it avoids unstable 

terrain and sensitive ecosystems, using appropriate road design and construction standards, planning for 

deactivation before road construction, using proper maintenance during road use and completing 

appropriate deactivation during and after a road’s life. 

Road deactivation is a simple solution to minimizing many of the effects of resource roads on the 

environment. The main forms of deactivation include: 

• Seasonal deactivation 

• Semi permanent deactivation and; 

• Permanent deactivation 

These best practices greatly reduce the cumulative environmental impacts of resource roads. Reducing 

these impacts will also ensure less money is spent in the long-term by resource development companies 

and governments on environmental restoration to fix the impacts of poorly located, designed, built and 

maintained roads, and on the eventual deactivation of abandoned roads. 
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS 

The effects of resource roads on the environment are varied and depend on a number of local factors 

including climate, geology, ecosystem sensitivity, road design and location, and standard of construction. 

The main direct effects of roads are related to surface and groundwater hydrology, water quality, wildlife 

and geomorphology. Indirectly, roads also provide human access to remote areas. 

Photograph 1: A large landslide initiated at a high elevation has travelled hundreds of 

meters to the valley bottom impacting three other roads along the way. 

Hydrology

Resource roads can affect the timing and volume of flow in creeks, streams and rivers that they cross. 

They intercept groundwater flow, causing it to come to the surface, and run off more rapidly. These 

effects are particularly significant on hillslopes. Roads are essentially impermeable, and precipitation that 

may otherwise have infiltrated into the ground runs off roads and is concentrated in ditches and eventually 

into surface watercourses. 

This concentration of water and more rapid runoff leads to higher flows in tributary and main valley 

streams. As a result, this can create more frequent and extreme flooding, watercourse bank erosion and 

channel widening, a greater movement of sediment which leads to deeper scour in places, and large 

sediment deposits elsewhere. 
Water Quality

Resource roads are typically constructed from local materials. This generally consists of blasted rock, 

silty sandy glacial material and occasionally sand and gravel if available. Due to the generally fine 

textured materials used to ‘cap’ the road and provide a smooth running surface, the finished resource road 

is prone to erosion. This is exacerbated by traffic of both light and heavy duty vehicles. Run-off from 

active roads during precipitation events is often sediment laden, which fouls water quality for aquatic life. 

Blasting is frequently necessary in road building, and can result in unweathered bedrock becoming 

exposed to air and water. Weathering of the newly exposed rock faces lead to acid rock drainage and 

leaching of metals from the road, both of which can significantly affect the receiving environment. 

Photograph 2: A large active landslide is the result of poor water management at 

the road. 
Photograph 3: An abandoned road that has chronic instability as a result of filling across a steep slope 

including poor water management at the road. 

Wildlife and Fisheries

Resource roads can impact wildlife through mortality from traffic and impediments to migration 

corridors. But the most significant impact is they change the relationship between predator and prey 

species. Predators such as wolves use the roads for easier access across steep slopes, rivers, and deep 

snow terrain when the road is ploughed to reach prey animals that otherwise are protected by these natural 

barriers. 

Resource roads can also block the passage of fish through improperly located and, or installed culverts. 

When culverts are installed that ‘hang’ above the creek at the outlet and are preventing migration, fish are 

unable to move upstream. When culverts are undersized, significant water velocities through the culvert 

can exceed a fish’s ability to swim through it. 

Mass Movement

The construction of resource roads across steep slopes, unstable and potentially unstable terrain, and the 

concentration of water by roads onto such terrain frequently leads to mass movement events such as 

landslides and debris flows. These mass movement events can travel hundreds of meters and have 

significant impacts on water quality, the morphology of rivers and creeks, vegetation, infrastructure and 

human life. 
Road-related Human Impacts

Resource roads provide access for people travelling deep into wilderness areas. This leads to increased 

hunting and fishing pressures; increased ATV, snow machine and off road vehicle use and the 

environmental effects associated with those activities; access to sensitive ecosystems; and can also 

increase the potential for wildfire. 

TYPES OF SOLUTIONS 

The resources that these roads access have a finite lifespan which dictates the lifespan of the roads that 

service them. Given our era of Google earth and hyper sensitive monitoring of resource development 

industries by Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations who can rapidly broadcast environmental 

degradation around the world, it is in the best interest of all resource industries to operate using 

environmental best practices. This includes reclamation of resource roads following today’s high 

standards. In the old days it was called “putting a road to bed”; today it is known as road deactivation. 

Seasonal Solution

Resource extraction is rarely year round, and there is often a period of several months where a road is not 

in use. Seasonal deactivation involves installing ditches skewed across the road surface. Culverts are 

“backed up” by digging a ditch on the downslope side of the culvert to ensure that if the culvert becomes 

plugged, water will be intercepted and directed across the road and back into the watercourse rather than 

running down the road. This prevents road erosion and damage to other culverts and watercourse-grade 

on the road, and helps to limit the initiation of landslides and debris flows. Seasonal deactivation 

mitigates the effects of heavy precipitation on the road and subsequently reduces mass movement, erosion 

and sedimentation events. 

Semi-permanent Solution

When a road is no longer needed in the short term (2-10 years), but there is potential for the road to be 

used again in the future, semi permanent deactivation is appropriate to limit the environmental liability of 

the road, while still preserving the road as an infrastructure asset. This involves removing most culverts, 

digging extra cross ditches between watercourses and pulling back potentially unstable road sections, but 

leaving in major crossing structures such as bridges. A seasonally deactivated road can still normally be 

used by a pickup truck. 

These roads do not require annual maintenance, but still represent a long-term environmental liability for 

the road permit holder as major structures are still in place, and inherent instability of the road bed still 

exists. Semi permanent deactivation generally restores natural hillslope hydrology and significantly 

limits the potential for road induced mass movement events. 
Permanent Deactivation Solution

When a road is no longer required for industrial or other human access, permanent deactivation is 

undertaken. This deactivation involves removing all culverts and bridges, pulling back unstable and 

potentially unstable road shoulders and fillslopes, installing water bars, and in some cases scarifying the 

road surface to permit water infiltration and vegetation growth. Sometimes the road is completely 

‘debuilt’ and the hillslope is recontoured with the objective of eventually returning the site to a productive 

forest. 

Vehicle access is often not possible along a permanently deactivated road. The level of deactivation is 

designed to return the hilllslope hydrology to as close to preconstruction conditions as possible, and 

remove any inherent instability presented by the road. A permanently deactivated road requires no 

maintenance, and should remove any environmental liability from the permit holder. Permanent 

deactivation is also an opportunity to restrict human access into wilderness areas. 

PROPER PLANNING RECOMMENDATIONS 

Just as mine closure and reclamation planning is undertaken prior to mine construction, planning for 

deactivation and decommissioning of resource roads should also be addressed prior to road construction. 

Since the mid 1990s the BC forest industry has regulated a high standard of road construction and 

deactivation planning. Government funds are also made available each year to assess and deactivate 

abandoned forest roads in sensitive and heavily impacted watersheds. These measures have resulted in a 

reduction in long-term environmental degradation from forest roads. 

 

Best practices related to resource roads include planning to construct a road where it avoids unstable 

terrain and sensitive ecosystems, using appropriate road design and construction standards, planning for 

deactivation before road construction, using proper maintenance during road use and completing 

appropriate deactivation during and after a road’s life. These best practices greatly reduce the cumulative 

environmental impacts of resource roads. Reducing these impacts will also ensure less money is spent in 

the long-term by resource development companies and governments on environmental restoration to fix 

the impacts of poorly located, designed, built and maintained roads, and on the eventual deactivation of 

abandoned roads. 

BC has a wealth of qualified registered professionals who include registered geoscientists, engineers, 

foresters and agrologists, who have world class expertise in all aspects of resource road design, 

construction, maintenance and deactivation. 

ROAD DEACTIVATION REFERENCES 

Significant road deactivation occurred in BC during the mid 1990s, particularly in mountainous areas 

where the impacts of roads were the largest. As limited deactivation had occurred prior to this time, there 

was a significant learning curve for professionals. Many training events, research trials, case studies and 

discussions papers were made available, and as a result most of the best deactivation references are from 
that time period. Below is a collection of available relevant literature, standards, and techniques for road 

deactivation in BC. 

Effectiveness Evaluation of Road Deactivation Techniques on the West Coast of Vancouver Island 

www.for.gov.bc.ca/rco/research/wrp/en-020.pdf. 

Forest Investment Account. Activity Specific Standard - Permanent Road Deactivation, Landslide and 

Gully Rehabilitation 

http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hth/engineering/FIA/PermanentRoadDeactivationLandslideandGullyRehabilitat

ion.htm. 

Forest Practices Code. Forest Road Engineering Guidebook 

http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/tasb/legsregs/fpc/fpcguide/Road/fre.pdf. 

Hillsope Restoration. Best Management Practices Handbook 

http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hth/engineering/documents/publications_guidebooks/publications_reports/bmp_

hndbk_nov_01.pdf 

Resource Road Rehabilitation Handbook. 

www.env.gov.bc.ca/wld/documents/wrp/wrtc_3_part1.pdf 

Technical Standards and Guidelines for Forest Road Deactivation/Restoration Activities. 

www.clayoquot.org/.../Appendix%201,%20Road%20Deactivation%20Standards.pdf