This project aims to provide large landscape practitioners of the U.S. Northern Rockies with a decision support tool for prioritizing conservation action to mitigate road impacts on wildlife corridors. We will overlay analyses of corridor network centrality with analyses of wildlife-vehicle collision risk to identify where high-importance corridors meet high-impact road segments. Our findings will establish a rigorous, transparent basis for focusing road mitigation efforts where they will yield the greatest benefits to region-wide connectivity, and will be conveyed in the form of web-based map tools, a comprehensive written report, and a workshop for large landscape practitioners.
Objectives:
The primary objective of this project is to prioritize conservation action to mitigate the impacts of road networks on wildlife corridors. Our analyses will provide: An inventory of the condition of corridors with respect to road impacts by overlaying road impact estimates on corridor importance scores. A much-needed decision support tool to help practitioners focus road mitigation efforts where they matter most by pinpointing actual and potential high-value corridors that are bisected by high-impact road segments.
