Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/M009874/1
Assessing the contribution of road traffic to declines in UK biodiversity
Training Grant Award
- Lead Supervisor:
- Professor A Balmford, University of Cambridge, Zoology
- Grant held at:
- University of Cambridge, Zoology
- Science Area:
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Terrestrial
- ENRIs:
- Biodiversity
- Environmental Risks and Hazards
- Global Change
- Natural Resource Management
- Pollution and Waste
- Science Topics:
- Animal behaviour
- Transport Ops & Management
- Traffic Impact Assessment
- Conservation Ecology
- Population Ecology
- Environmental Geography
- Abstract:
- The populations of many European bird species have suffered severe declines over the last 30 years. Declines have been linked to changes in agriculture, woodland management and climate, but could in part be driven by another significant environmental change whose impact is as yet un-quantified. Many studies have shown that densities of breeding birds are depressed near roads. Effects have been detected at distances of over 3 km in birds (1) and in other taxonomic groups such as bats (2), probably a result of traffic noise (3). These indirect impacts of roads are likely to exceed the direct effects of collision mortality and habitat loss (1) and for a few species there is evidence that this is the main cause of decline (4). This project will undertake the first country-wide test of the contribution of road traffic to recorded declines in bird populations. With an average of nearly 2 km of roads per sq km, the UK is well-suited to such a study. The area of land classified by the Council for the Preservation of Rural England as "disturbed" has doubled since the 1960s, and a halving of the UK's wider countryside bird populations since the mid-1980s is strongly correlated (r = -0.96) with a doubling in traffic volume over the same period. Uniquely to the UK, systematic, spatially explicit country-wide bird monitoring data are available for the period spanning this enormous increase in road traffic. By combining this with information on traffic volume and known drivers of ecological change, such as agricultural intensification, the student will explore the extent to which changes in road traffic versus other known threats can account for spatial and temporal patterns of bird decline. The likely causality of these overall correlations will be tested by comparing patterns of bird population change in areas and over periods where farming and climate have changed markedly but road traffic has changed little, and vice-versa. The models will allow the student to identify guilds or habitat types that are especially sensitive to roads. The project will then assess the effectiveness of a number of possible mitigation measures, such as building roads in cuttings or planting protective screens. Interpolated UK-wide GIS "traffic impact" layers back to the 1960s will be created using available data on traffic volume, road distribution and a number of effect-by-distance functions. The locations of over 4,000 BTO Breeding Bird Survey sites (BBS; data from 1994) and BTO Common Birds Census sites (CBC; data from 1962) will then be intersected with this layer. The spatial and temporal variation in counts of a large number of species will be modelled as a function of habitat, changes in land management, functional traits and traffic to assess the relative contribution of each to the observed patterns. The student will also collect new field data on bird abundance and undertake noise measurements along transects perpendicular to roads of comparable traffic flow, chosen to allow an assessment of the effects of screening by vegetation and topography. The student will be based in the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, with support from the RSPB (the CASE Partner) and the British Trust for Ornithology (which holds BBS and CBC data). The result of this collaboration will be the first quantitative estimate of the relative contribution of road traffic volume to national declines in wildlife in an industrialised country, and the identification of possible mitigation measures. The results will be of value to planners and conservationists trying to estimate the true environmental costs of transport infrastructure both here and overseas. 1. Conservation Biology 25, 241 (2011). 2. Journal of Applied Ecology 49, 82 (2012). 3. Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences 280, 10.1098/rspb.2013.2290 (2013). 4. Acta Ornithologica 47, 47 (2012).
- NERC Reference:
- NE/M009874/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- DTG - directed
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Industrial CASE
This training grant award has a total value of £85,122
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Total - Fees | Total - RTSG | Total - Student Stipend |
|---|---|---|
| £16,587 | £11,000 | £57,538 |
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