• Title/Summary/Keyword: road ecology

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Korea Road-Kill Observation System: The First Case to Integrate Road-Kill Data in National Scale by Government

  • Kim, Kyungmin;Woo, Dong-Gul;Seo, Hyunjin;Park, Taejin;Song, Eui-Geun;Choi, Tae-Young
    • Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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    • v.35 no.4
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    • pp.281-284
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    • 2019
  • Efficient management of road-kill data is difficult at national scale when there are many organizations that are in charge of different road types. Here, we described the first case to integrate road-kill data through Korea Road-kill Observation System (KROS) by the Korean government. The system was launched in June 2018 to approximately 3,000 road menders. During 15 months, 5,812 road-kill observations were registered on KROS including mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. Of them, about 86 % was occupied by five species (Hydropotes inermis, Felis catus, Capreolus pygargus, Nyctereutes procyonoides, and Canis lupus familiaris) listed in number of occurrences. The observed road-kill frequency rapidly increased until April 2019 and peaked on May 2019. However, as the system is just starting, the results from KROS cannot be treated as the exact representation of road-kill trend in the country. Although the efficient method to manage national road-kill statistic is arranged, still there are some limitations to overcome to make the system stable.

The Water Deer on a Road: Road-Kill Characteristics of a Nationally Abundant but Internationally Threatened Species

  • Kim, Kyungmin;Seo, Hyunjin;Woo, Donggul;Park, Taejin;Song, Euigeun
    • Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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    • v.37 no.1
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    • pp.62-68
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    • 2021
  • Despite numerous efforts on reducing road-kill worldwide, the collisions have been occurring continuously. Many factors are affecting road-kill occurrences and the effect is various by species. We investigated Hydropotes inermis argyropus road-kill characteristics on the national highway. We examined 9,099 H. i. argyropus road-kill points with distance to the gaps on road (interchange and intersection) and distance to six natural land-cover types as explanatory variables. We also examined the number of road-kill occurrences according to temporal variation using chi-square test with 9,658 events. In general, H. i. argyropus road-kill location tended to occur close to the gaps on road, agricultural lands and forests. The average distance from road-kill to the gap was 694.7 m and 78.6% of the collisions were occurred within 1 km from the gaps. In addition, Kruskal-Wallis test showed the distance between road-kill points and each land cover and the gaps was significantly different. The temporal analyses showed that the differences of the H. i. argyropus road-kill frequency are significant in both month and season. Our results implies H. i. argyropus road-kill location tended to occur close to the gaps on road, agricultural lands and forests in general, especially during May and June, according to their seasonal behavior. Thus, we suggest there is a need of concentrated management on the roads with specific characteristics for both wildlife and human safety.

Factors Influencing Roadkill Hotspot in the Republic of Korea

  • Kim, Kyungmin;Yi, Yoonjung;Woo, Donggul;Park, Taejin;Song, Euigeun
    • Proceedings of the National Institute of Ecology of the Republic of Korea
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    • v.2 no.4
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    • pp.274-278
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    • 2021
  • Road structures play an important role in collisions involving vehicles and wildlife. Our study aimed to determine the effect of various types of road structures on the risk associated with roadkill. We surveyed 50 previously identified roadkill hotspots, ranked from one to five according to roadkill density. We collected nine types of road structure data on each hotspot road section. Structures with similar characteristics were grouped together, resulting in five categories, namely, median barrier, high edge barrier, low edge barrier, speed, and visibility. We examined the existence of each road structure category at each hotspot rank. The cumulative link model showed that the absence of bottom blocked median barrier increased the roadkill hotspot rank. Our study concluded that a visual obstacle in the middle of roads by the median barrier decreases wildlife road crossing attempts and roadkill risk. We suggest that future roadkill mitigation plans should be established considering these characteristics.

Study on Crossing Tendencies of Birds by Road Type for Validation of Wildlife Crossing Structures Targeting Avian Species

  • Song, Eui-Geun;Lee, Hwa-Su;Park, Hee-Bok;Woo, Dong-Gul;Park, Tae-Jin;Chun, Su-Won;Sim, Seung-Woo;Cha, Hyoun-Gi;Lim, Anya;Choi, Tae-Young
    • Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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    • v.34 no.2
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    • pp.136-141
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    • 2018
  • The purpose of this study is to compare the bird crossing of roads by type (Expressway 1, railroad-provincial road and Highway 4) and the crossing of roads according to the size of birds. The greatest number of avian species and individuals crossing road per 10 minutes were found on railroad-provincial road ($8.96{\pm}1.92$ and $29.33{\pm}11.94$, respectively), while the lowest number of avian species and individuals were found on Expressway 1 ($2.96{\pm}1.04$ and $6.13{\pm}2.89$, respectively), which has the widest width. In addition, the number of small-sized bird (<20 cm) crossing the Expressway 1, railroad-provincial road, and Highway 4 was lower than that of the medium-sized bird (${\geq}20cm$). Current wildlife crossing structures have been focused on mammals, amphibians and reptiles, but future structures should also consider birds.

Research on the Size, Formation and Tendency to Evade the Road of the Feeding Flocks of Crane Species - Centering on the Effect of Road vs. Traffic Condition - (두루미류의 취식무리 크기 및 구성과 도로에 대한 회피 - 도로의 영향 vs 통행에 의한 영향? -)

  • Yoo, Seung-Hwa;Lee, Ki-Sup;Kim, In-Kyu;Kang, Tae-Han;Lee, Han-Soo
    • Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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    • v.23 no.1
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    • pp.41-49
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    • 2009
  • This research conducted a survey on the feeding crane's size, formation and distribution distance subsequent to road pattern and feeding flock's size during the wintering season eight times at the Cheolwon basin in Korea from December 2005 until February 2006. The survey results are as follows: First, the feeding flocks of the Red-crowned and White-naped Crane were found to mainly consist of two to four individuals. Mono-specific feeding flocks were more identified than hetero-specific feeding flocks in both Red-crowned and White-naped Cranes. There existed a significant difference in the ratio by size between the feeding Red-crowned and White-naped Cranes. The crane's average distribution distance from the paved road was much farther than from the unpaved road, paved farm road and unpaved farm road. In case of the white-naped crane, there was a difference in its distance length from between the road and farm road and there existed a significant difference only in the paved road in the distance length by road pattern between these two bird species[Red-crowned and White-naped Crane]. Such a result indicates that crane species don't prefer the road with frequent vehicular traffic to the road with low vehicular traffic. 5 or more individuals of feeding flocks of the Red-crowned Crane were located at a farther distance length from the paved road comparing to less than 5 individuals of the whole feeding flocks and less than 5 individual feeding flocks. 5 or more individuals of feeding flocks of the White-naped Crane were located at a farther distance length from the paved road, paved farm road and unpaved farm road than less than 5 individuals of feeding flocks of the White-naped Crane; however, there existed no difference in distance length subsequent to their group size. Conclusively, it was found out that the flocks with a larger size were more greatly affected by interrupting factors. Considering such results, there seems to be a more relation to the fact that larger size feeding flocks of crane species have a higher efficiency in the lookout for their surroundings.

Seagrasses in Northern Chinese Seas: Historical Declines and Case Study of the Status (중국 북부 연안의 잘피: 역사적 감소추세 및 현황에 대한 사례)

  • Zhang, Xuelei;Li, Yan;Liu, Ping;Sun, Ping;Wang, Xiao;Fan, Shiliang;Xu, Qinzeng
    • Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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    • v.13 no.4
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    • pp.305-312
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    • 2010
  • Seagrass beds are a type of coastal wetland with many ecosystem services and precious economic values. Seagrass meadows used to be widespread along the coasts in northern Chinese seas, yet they have long been overlooked and lack devoted study on their history and status. This paper firstly reveals, by synthesis of information on composition of seagrass species and their distribution, that the seagrasses in this region have experienced considerable declines, both in terms of distribution and biomass, from the earliest record to present days. Then, a case study at the seagrass bed of Chudao is described to show the status of representative seagrass meadows. The results indicate that the environmental condition is good, seagrasses are in recovery, the planktoners are healthy and rich fishery resources and the mammal finless porpoise are associated with the seagrass bed. The cause(s) of historical seagrass decline and current conditions are also discussed, and future recommendations on seagrass protection and mapping are suggested.

Estimation of the Water deer (Hydropotes inermis) Roadkill Frequency in South Korea (우리나라의 고라니 (Hydropotes inermis) 로드킬 발생건수 추정)

  • Choi, Tae-Young
    • Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
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    • v.3 no.3
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    • pp.162-168
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    • 2016
  • The objective of this study was to estimate the roadkill occurrence of water deer (Hydropotes inermis), a representative roadkill species in South Korea. For this estimation, I analyzed national road statistics and roadkill statistics, and then reviewed case studies that estimated the number of deer roadkill in other countries to apply the estimating methods to our case. As a result, the estimated number of water deer vehicle collision was at least 60,000 per year in South Korea.