研究表明，道路网络是一把双刃剑

[开普敦]在撒哈拉以南非洲开发以促进社会经济发展的新道路可能会对动植物物种产生负面影响学习suggests.

Tracking the impacts of existing road networks in both protected and unprotected areas, the study published inbeplay足球体育的微博环境研究信last month sheds light on exactly how roads affect生物多样性and other elements of natural systems.

“It’s like there were all these different pieces of the puzzle that we put together to see the bigger picture,” Lavinia Perumal, study lead author who is an ecology doctoral candidate at the African Climate and Development Initiative, University of Cape Town, South Africa, tellsSciDev.Net.

“我们发现了诸如农田扩张，伐木和城市化等过程的证据都受到与道路接近的影响。”

Lavinia Perumal，非洲气候与发展计划

Researchers analysed 137 peer reviewed articles published between 1995 and 2019 and documented 271 effects of roads on protected and unprotected areas across Sub-Saharan Africa. They tracked road ecosystem impact pathways by linking underlying mechanisms and effects.

该研究显示了保护区内和外部道路的影响，影响着土地使用模式，偷猎，人类野生动植物冲突，土地退化和入侵物种的传播。

该研究说，保护区的道路充当了运动的障碍，从而减少了该地区的大象的分布范围，并补充说，有必要在不同情况下了解道路与动植物物种之间的相互作用。

根据Perumal的说法，尽管土地使用变化是非洲生物多样性损失的最重要驱动因素之一，但道路的影响通常被视为变革的驱动力。

她说：“我们找到了诸如农田扩展，伐木和城市化等过程的证据。”.

In some cases, this effect extended up to ten kilometres from the road, showing how roads impacts reach far beyond their immediate area, Perumal explains.

In such cases, roads act as indirect drivers because they increase access to previously inaccessible land, markets,城市她说，经济机会，激励景观的这种变化。

Even inside protected areas, roads often pose a threat to animals as barriers to movement, but some avoided areas near roads, while others were found closer to roads, the researchers found.

Road-animal interactions were not the same between different regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, so protection alone may not be effective at mitigating the negative impacts of roads, especially in Central Africa, Perumal adds.

“Ideally, we should have smart road design and construction plans that carefully consider the long-term direct and indirect ecological effects and use thisknowledgeto inform where roads should be built and where they are a serious threat,” she explains.

佩鲁马尔说，寻找避免生态敏感领域的替代途径是显而易见的第一步，但这并不像看起来那样容易，因为如此大规模的发展涉及多个国家，所有这些国家都有自己的政策和议程。

Wendy Collinson-Jonker, wildlife and transport programme manager at the Endangered Wildlife Trust, South Africa, tellsSciDev.Net该研究主要涉及绘制与确定这些效果的何时何地有关的道路效应以及其他信息的效果。

“这篇评论凸显了发展的需求，但并非以生物多样性为代价。[研究]似乎相当全面，并阐明了一些差距，例如道路影响生物多样性和土地利用模式的方式。

道路对transportation货物和人物。”科林森·乔克（Collinson-Jonker）说，并补充说，他们可以特别改善低收入和中等收入国家的社会经济状况。

这件作品由Scidev.net的撒哈拉以南非洲英语桌子制作。