Wildlife vehicle collisions versus landscape fragmentation

Pablo García Fernández

Diplomová práce

Abstract:

Wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVCs) are a very important issue, that is getting worse in recent times. They produce loss of lives (both animals and humans) and huge economic costs. Besides, fragmentation, that is caused mainly by roads, act as a barrier for wildlife, what can lead to a decrease of their populations or even their disappearance.In this work, they were examined WVCs in three regions of the Czech Republic (Ústecký, Liberecký and Středočeský Region) between 2007 and 2014. The data was taken from the Police of this country and analysed with ArcGis. Furthermore, the fragmentation of the landscape was studied, by dividing it in the unfragmented areas by traffic (UAT, what is the area of landscape with 100 km2 or more that is limited by roads with an annual average traffic of at least 1000 vehicles/day) and the fragmented area, to see the influence of fragmentation on the crashes with animals.The results showed a relationship between fragmentation and the number of collisions, as besides having a higher length of roads, and thus a higher surface where crashes can occur, in the fragmented zone the collisions per kilometer were also higher, and by each 100 kilometers of roads, there were 9 more accidents, on average, than in the unfragmented one.By dividing the area of study in polygons formed by the major roads, the ones in the fragmented zone again had more accidents per kilometer than the polygons in the UAT. However, the collisions per square kilometer showed a higher number in the unfragmented zone, so it can be concluded that the collisions in the UAT are more concentrated in certain places, while in the fragmented one they are more widespread.

Keywords

WVC, accidents, animals, UAT, Czech Republic

Jazyk práce: angličtina

Datum vytvoření / odevzdání či podání práce: 12. 12. 2018

Obhajoba závěrečné práce

• Vedoucí: Ing. Zdeněk Keken, Ph.D.

Česká zemědělská univerzita v Praze

Fakulta životního prostředí

Magisterský studijní program / obor:
Lesní inženýrství / Forestry, Water and Landscape Management