Inclusion of road ecology criteria within environmental Impact assessment

Abstract

Transport infrastructure construction and its future expansion is a worldwide phenomenon. Within road ecology, scientific attention has focused on effectiveness of mitigation measures for reducing human-wildlife conflict, essentially an ex-post evaluation approach. This work applies a different conceptual framework: an ex-ante approach paying attention to underlying causes of sub-optimal mitigation, typically found in decision-making procedures. The purpose of the study was to determine whether the emphasis on road ecology mitigation measures changed over time. This study considers 52 road projects in the Czech Republic for which the EIA process was initiated between 2003 and 2022. The survey found a low number of EIA processes where these types of mitigation measures were proposed, although over time the frequency increased mainly at the stage of biological survey. Number of processes where landscape permeability for wildlife movement was assessed also increased over time. Coordinating solutions for human-wildlife conflicts across stages and including road ecology criteria in decision-making processes is essential.