Effect of Roads on Ecological Corridors Used for Wildlife Movement in a Natural Heritage Site

Abstract

Abstract:Roads are the link between geographic space and human socio-economic activities, promoting local economic development, and simultaneously causing various negative effects, such as segmentation, interference, destruction, degradation, and pollution. In China, the construction of roads is rapid, which might affect wildlife movement, landscape pattern, and land use change, thereby, affecting the conservation of heritage sites. In the present study, the minimum cumulative resistance model, along with geographic information system technology, was adopted to compute the ecological corridor for wildlife movement between the source patches and to analyze ecological corridor changes under two conditions (road presence/absence) at two time points in Kanas, nominated as a World Natural Heritage site. The relationships between the ecological corridor changes and various factors, including the cutting index of the 'road-effect zones', terrain, and road geometric characteristics, were examined using the geographical detector model to identify the influencing factors and mechanisms of the corridor changes, in order to rationally simulate the potential ecological corridors. In addition, the detached and fragmented ecological patches can be connected to effectively protect the biodiversity, biological habitats, and species, which are important means to achieve regional sustainable development and ecological construction.

Conservation Value of World Natural Heritage Sites’ Outstanding Universal Value via Multiple Techniques—Bogda, Xinjiang Tianshan

“…The degree of degradation and fragmentation of landscape types represents the integrity of the landscape's boundary on a spatial scale [40]. According to the self-recovery and anti-interference characteristics of the value elements of the study area, the vulnerability of the plant species can be measured from indicators such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and community structure richness and soil type, which can directly or indirectly reflect the characteristics of vegetation [24,27,29]. The degree of protection indices for endangered species, as well as the endemic species, reflect the degree of protection and distribution of animal species and can directly or indirectly influence the distribution of animals after external disturbances [22,23].…”

“…Integrity requires that OUV elements and areas with heritage values have uncompromising and regional holistic characteristics [13,26]. Threats to the OUV reflects the situation in which the OUV is subject to human and natural impact or influence, such as building construction and development, transportation infrastructure, utilities or service infrastructure, biological resource use or modification and sudden ecological or geological events [27][28][29][30]. Ecosystem processes and the characteristics of animals and plants play significant roles in the aesthetic and bioecological components of OUV [24,31].…”

“…The species diversity component of OUV includes features such as: the number and distribution of rare and endangered species and species richness [22,33]. Animal species, under the stress of external disturbances, are typically sensitive to changes in living habitats, foraging sites, migration routes and so forth [29]. At the same time, environmental factors such as altitude, slope, temperature and precipitation are root causes of regional formation and thus contribute to the formation of the environmental component of OUV [21,25,31,34].…”

Ecological Environment Assessment in World Natural Heritage Site Based on Remote-Sensing Data. A Case Study from the Bayinbuluke

“…As the hotpots of biodiversity and major habitat for species, these districts are typical areas that reflect the biological and ecology value of Bayinbuluke. With the improvement of protection management requirements, tourism activities have gradually concentrated in the exhibition district, and the construction of tourism infrastructures and roads have had a certain negative impact on the ecological environment [64][65][66]. In addition, grazing activities are allowed in buffer zone.…”

GIS-Based Assessment of Habitat Networks for Conservation Planning in Kas-Kekova Protected Area (Turkey)

“…Amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals are mostly affected by the roads [69,70]. The impact of roads on the ecological network is in the range of 100-600 m [65] and according to different road types (provincial, district and rural roads), the impact area can be determined as 500, 100 and 50 m, respectively [71][72]. The roads in the PA were buffered using different radii (500, 100 and 50 m) based on their type (province, district, rural) and visualized together with the determined ecological network for defining the conservation strategies and to support the decision making for the construction of new roads.…”