Ecological risk and accessibility analysis to assess the impact of roads under Habitats Directive |
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Authors: | Tommaso Sitzia Thomas Campagnaro Stefano Grigolato |
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Affiliation: | Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, Università degli Studi di Padova, Viale dell'Università 16, Legnaro (PD), Italy |
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Abstract: | We propose a method for the appropriate assessment of adverse effects of roads in compliance with the European Union Habitats Directive. The method incorporates an analysis of ecological risk of edge effects by the proposed roads with the related increase in accessibility. The method was tested on 30 km of planned forest roads inside an 8,000-ha reserve included in two Natura 2000 sites. As a result, the cumulative effect of 19 road segments was judged as not significantly affecting the integrity of the sites, although they made accessible an extra 314 ha. On the basis of the accessibility calculation, 20 ha of land were set aside from forest exploitation as a mandatory mitigation measure. The method objectively determined the cumulative adverse effects, enabled comparison of plan revisions and alternatives and proved to measure direct and indirect significant effects with a realistic effort in terms of field survey and geographic information system processing. |
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Keywords: | Environmental Impact Assessment Natura 2000 biodiversity conservation forest management appropriate impact assessment |
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