Railway Ecology—Experiences and Examples in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The range of direct and indirect effects of railway transport on animals, plants, ecological processes and the actual ecosystems vary considerably. Railway transport operations and infrastructure building lead to environmental pollution, loss or conversion of habitats, landscape fragmentation and, last but not least, to animal mortality caused by collisions with passing trains. The impact of railways is determined by the nature of railway infrastructure, which is not as significant in the Czech Republic as road infrastructure, yet it is one of the densest in Europe. An important feature is relatively low electrification (about 33% of the lines) and the length of multi-track lines (about 20%). In the coming years, we can expect massive investments in revitalization, optimization and modernization of the railways in the Czech Republic, and eventually their electrification. To connect the crucial trans-European lines and all regions it will be necessary to complete the basic network of high-speed railways. Based on these facts we can say that the significance of railway ecology in the Czech Republic will grow with the amount of investment activities implemented in the railway network. In the past, similar development took place with road infrastructure, and therefore there is an opportunity to learn from it. To mitigate the direct effects of railways on wildlife, on the basis of previous experience in the Czech Republic we recommend working primarily with management measures. These are both in terms of wildlife management and the management of habitats in the area of transport infrastructure.

Zagotavljanje migracijskih koridorjev za prostoživeče živali na območju železniške infrastrukture

“…V prispevku smo opravili pregled in sintezo literature, ki obravnava omilitvene ukrepe za zagotavljanje povezljivosti prostora in za zmanjšanje umrljivosti prostoživečih živali na območju železniške infrastrukture. Pri tem smo upoštevali pregledna dela, ki opisujejo omilitvene ukrepe za zmanjšanje negativnega vpliva linijske infrastrukture, vključno z železnico (Iuell in sod., 2003;Langbein in sod., 2011;Adamič in sod., 2012;Technical …, 2016;Potočnik in sod., 2019), in dela, ki se osredotočajo na ukrepe in primere dobrih praks le na območju železniške infrastrukture (Babinska-Werka in sod., 2015;Carvalho in sod., 2017;Keken in Kušta, 2017;Seiler in Olsson, 2017;Bhardway in sod., 2022;Jasinska in sod., 2022).…”

“…Na število trkov z vlaki primarno vpliva gostota populacij (zlasti parkljarjev) v okolici železniških prog. Manjše število prostoživečih živali v območjih ob železniški infrastrukturi (in s tem manjšo umrljivost) lahko dosežemo z uravnavanjem populacij (odstrelom) in ustreznim upravljanjem s habitati (Pokorny in sod., 2016;Iuell in sod., 2003;Technical ..., 2016;Keken in Kušta, 2017). Odstrel v okolici železniških prog ne sme povzročati dodatnega stresa mlajšim osebkom, ki so že v osnovi izpostavljeni mladostni disperziji (širjenju v nova območja) in posledično možnemu povozu.…”

Evaluating the Management Success of an Alien Species Through Its Hunting Bags: The Case of the Sika Deer (Cervus Nippon) in the Czech Republic

“…Thus, it would be important to systematically collect these data because, when the number of ungulates increases and the main source of data on their population is represented solely by the hunting bags, data on WVC may represent an important and inexpensive complementary data source (Neumann et al, 2020). Along with a pervasive road infrastructure, the Czech Republic also contains one of the densest railway infrastructures of Europe (Keken, Kušta et al, 2016;Keken and Kušta, 2017) that represents a further possible cause of wildlife mortality (S.C.V., 1996; Dorsey, Olsson et al, 2015;Santos, Carvalho et al, 2017), especially for the ungulates (Santos, Carvalho et al, 2017). However, its impact can be considered relatively low on species with high density, a fast reproduction rate, and that are not endangered (van der Grift and Kuijsters 1998, van der Grift 1999).…”

No clear effect of odour repellents on roe deer behaviour in the vicinity of roads

“…The efficiency of chemical repellents is also influenced by the way of application (Kimball et al 2009, Elmeros et al 2011). ORE are usually applied to adjacent vegetation around roads (Iuell et al 2003) or to wooden sticks placed along roads (Bíl et al 2018) or railways (Keken and Kušta 2017). A new kind of ORE installation, recently recommended by ORE producers, involves rolls of bast injected with the chemical substance.…”