Global research of roadless areas and ecosystems

Описание: Dr Peter Hobson, Reader in Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainability at Writtle University College, is part of an international team of scientists that recently established the Roadless Areas Initiative and over the last two years have been working towards producing global spatial data on roadless areas through crowdsourcing, the OpenStreetMap platform.

The findings of the study, which involved the analysis of 36 million kilometres of road data, show that the Earth’s surface has been shattered into more than 600 thousand fragments by roads. More than half of the fragments are smaller than 1km2.

This is the first time a global map of this kind has been produced and shows how roads introduce many problems to nature. For instance, they interrupt gene flow in animal populations; facilitate the spread of pests and diseases and increase soil erosion and the contamination of rivers and wetlands.

The study goes on to show that the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Agenda, brought into force in 2015 and now referred to as the Sustainable Development Goals, presents conflicts of interest between generating economic growth and safeguarding biodiversity. Some goals threaten the remaining roadless areas. However, limiting road expansion into roadless areas could be the most cost-effective way to achieve Sustainable Development Goals that relate to preserving the world’s natural heritage.

This short video sequence produced and narrated by Dr Hobson and his colleague Professor Ibisch of Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development - both Directors of the Centre for Econics - accompanies the publication of the Science research paper and the launch of a new website www.roadless.online.

The research paper, video and website together with other videos produced by the Centre will contribute to the student learning material at WUC, particularly those who will be studying the new Global Ecosystem Management degree programme.