Research
Making scientific research accessible
Here you’ll find easy-to-read summaries of scientifically rigorous, evidence-based and peer-reviewed publications from around the world to help you better plan, build and manage ecologically sustainable linear infrastructure.
Research summaries are listed chronologically according to when they were published here. To find information on a specific topic, please use the SEARCH function and search by keywords, including topic, species, location and/or author.
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Have you recently published a peer-reviewed scientific paper on transportation and ecology? Do you want practitioners all around the world to find and use your results? Then you need to contribute a Research Summary!
Roads are a severe threat to apex predators across the globe
Apex predators play critical roles in maintaining ecosystem health, but our meta-analysis on 36 species from around the world found all are affected by roads, and particularly in Asia. Proposed road projects in the Brazilian Amazon, Africa and Nepal will affect roughly 500 protected areas and threaten what little remains of apex predator’s core habitats, driving many species closer to extinction. Better planning to avoid such areas is urgently needed.
Alternative routes for a major Indonesian mining road to reduce environmental and financial costs
On the megadiversity island of Sumatra, Indonesia, a mining corporation has gained government approval to construct a major, 88-kilometer-long road that would cut across the Harapan Rainforest, one of the last surviving tracts of lowland rainforest on the island. We use strategic land-use-planning methods to identify alternate routes for the road that have far lower environmental and economic costs than the road being currently planned.
Designing and testing under-road tunnels for Asian amphibians
Many populations of amphibians are declining rapidly across Asia and road kill is a significant cause. In this project, we designed and tested a range of culverts to identify amphibian-friendly options to mitigate roadkill and barrier effects of roads.