Designing Sustainable Landscapes: Traffic metric

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Authors

Kevin McGarigal, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Brad Compton, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Ethan Plunkett, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Bill DeLuca, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Joanna Grand, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Publication Date

2017

Disciplines

Environmental Sciences | Sustainability

Description

The traffic metric assesses the effect of road (and railroad) traffic on animal populations due to road mortality. It integrates the distance to and traffic intensity of roads in the neighborhood of the focal cell. The traffic metric (Fig. 1) is an element of the ecological integrity analysis of the Designing Sustainable Landscapes (DSL) project (see technical document on integrity, McGarigal et al 2017). Consisting of a composite of 21 stressor and resiliency metrics, the index of ecological integrity (IEI) assesses the relative intactness and resiliency to environmental change of ecological systems throughout the northeast. As a stressor metric, Traffic values range from 0 (no effect from road traffic) to 1 (severe effect; although in real landscapes, the metric never reaches 1).

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/R5V12313

Recommended Citation

McGarigal, Kevin; Compton, Brad; Plunkett, Ethan; DeLuca, Bill; and Grand, Joanna, "Designing Sustainable Landscapes: Traffic metric" (2017). Data and Datasets. 27.
https://doi.org/10.7275/R5V12313 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/27