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Paving Over Paradise. Environmental Effects of Roads. Fragmentation of Conservation Landscape Degradation of Conservation Potential of lands Barrier to Wildlife Movement Sink for Wildlife Populations Degradation of Pristine Waters Degradation of Visual and Auditory Resources.
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Environmental Effects of Roads • Fragmentation of Conservation Landscape • Degradation of Conservation Potential of lands • Barrier to Wildlife Movement • Sink for Wildlife Populations • Degradation of Pristine Waters • Degradation of Visual and Auditory Resources
Large numbers of animals are killed annually on roads. In selected situations, such as for some amphibians with highly restricted home ranges, populations of rare animals may be reduced to dangerous sizes by road kills. An estimated 1 million vertebrates a day are killed on roads in the United States (Lalo 1987).
Roads facilitate biological invasion in that disturbed roadside habitats are invaded by exotic (non-native) plant and animal species dispersed by wind, water, vehicles, and other human activities. Roads may be the first points of entry for exotic species into a new landscape, and the road can serve as a corridor for plants and animals moving farther into the landscape.
The width of the surface of a road differs from the width of its ecological influence (Auerbach and others 1997; Forman, in press; Forman and others 1997; Larsen and Parks 1997; Reck and Kaule 1993).
Comprehensive mitigation of the full array of road-associated effects on terrestrial vertebrates of conservation concern poses one of the most serious of land management challenges.
