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ROAD ECOLOGY: SCIENCE AND
SOLUTIONS
By Richard T.T. Forman, Daniel Speding,
John A. Bksonette,Anthony J? C h m g q
CarolD. Cutsha14 Erginia H. Dale,
Lenore Fahrig, R o M fiance,
CharlesR. Goldman,Keuin Heanue,
JuliaA.Jom,Frea’eiick J. Swanson, Thomas
Turntine, and Thomas C. Winm
Island press
Cowlo, WA,and London, UK(2002)
BlPageS
ISBN 1-55953-9326(cloth)
US.ListPrice: $55.00
ISBN 1-55953-933-4(@z&. T)
US. ListPrice: $27.50
A central goal of transportation is the
delivery of safe and efficient services
with minimal environmental impact. In
practice, though, human mobility has
flourished while nature has suffered.
Awareness of the environmental impact
of roads is increasing, yet information
remains scarce for those interested in
minimizing the ecological effects of
roads and vehicles.
Road Ecology addresses that shortcom-
ing by bringing together previously frag-
mented knowledge into a broad and
inclusive framework for understanding
and developing solutions. This book
explores the history of the ’five-million-
mile road network in North America (the
United States and Canada), provides a
substantial overview of the many ways
that roads impact the environment, and
looks at the current techniques being
applied to mitigate these impacts on
wildlife, land, water, and plant ecosys-
tems. The text delves into four main
areas: roads, vehicles and ecology; vege-
tation and wildlife; water, chemicals, and
atmosphere; and road systems and land.
The book was coauthored by 14 special-
ists in fields ranging from landscape ecol-
ogy, civil engineering, and environmental
science, to biology, wildlife research ecol-
ogy, watershed management, limnology,
and transportation.
For more than a century, the trans-
portation community has been learning
how to guard road systems from nature’s
assaults, through better planning, design,
materials, and construction. But we are
just beginning to recognize the many
ways that roads assault nature, and, con-
sequently, our need to understand these
phenomena to mitigate negative out-
comes. Recognizing this need, the book
016 October 2003
delivers a clear call for a new field of
study, identified by the authors as “road
ecology.”
Existing requirements to assess envi-
ronmental impacts of new road projects
has helped to develop a new group of
environmental experts, and a body of
literature that, no doubt, has improved
the design of many poorly conceived
schemes. But this book makes it clear
that ad hoc environmental analysis has
left many gaps in our understanding of
effective mitigation for individual road
projects and is unlikely to ever effective-
ly reduce the impact of a growing sys-
tem of roads.
The core objective of this book is to
reduce the gaps cited above by integrat-
ing dispersed theories, models, and con-
cepts important to road ecology into a
coherent body of principles applicable
to transportation planning, practice, and
policy. In the process, the authors iden-
tify a range of examples, applications,
and case studies for the reader to con-
sider. Its primarily North American focus
is complemented by worldwide exam-
ples. Impact on the atmosphere is
briefly included, but the authors focus
on land, water, plants, and animals.
Concepts and models in the new field of
road ecology are integrated to establish
a coherent basis for developing trans-
portation policy, planning, and projects.
Topics examined include:
Foundations of road ecology;
Roads, vehicles, and trans-
portation planning;
Vegetation and roadsides;
Wildlife populations and
mitigation;
Water, sediment, and chemical
flows;
Aquatic ecosystems;
Wind, noise, and atmospheric
effects; and
Road networks and landscape
fragmentation.
By looking at problems associated
with vegetation, wildlife, aquatic ecosys-
tems, wind and atmospheric effects, and
flows of water, sediment, and chemicals,
the authors have described the issues
and provided a target for researchers in
many fields to focus their efforts. Until
now, the fields of opportunity in road
ecology have been ripe but the workers
few.
With more than 100 illustrations and
examples from around the world, Road
Environmental Progress (V01.22, N0.3)
Ecology is an indispensable and pioneer-
ing work for anyone involved with trans-
portation, including practitioners and
planners in state and province transporta-
tion departments, federal agencies, and
nongovernmental organizations. This is
an impressive and much-needed synthe-
sis that “mapsa road forward for scientif-
ic discovery, and better transportation
planning and action. It is a “mustread for
transportation specialists and ecologists
alike. The book also opens up an impor-
tant new research frontier, and will pro-
vide the incentive and direction that will
lead to a new generation of leaders and
specidsts dedicated to fmding answers to
these pressing problems.
RESTORATION OF PUGET SOUND RIVERS
By David R. Mongomey, Susan Bolton,
Derek B. Booth, and Leslie Wall
Universityof Washington
Sealtle, WA,andhndon, UK(2OO3)
512paga
ISBN 0-295-58295-0
US. LM Price $30.00(pp)
The recent listing of Pacific salmon
under the Endangered Species Act has led
to substantial interest in the scientdk basis
for river restoration in the Pacific North-
west. Millions of dollars in state and feder-
al funding has been earmarked for habitat
restoration efforts to stem the decline of
salmon populations in the region. This
book addresses the need for a solid
understanding of fluvial processes and
aquatic ecology in order to predict both
river and salmonid response to restoration
projects.
In the Pacific Northwest, as in most
regions of the United States, we are still
learning about the processes that create
habitat and river structure, how those
processes influence aquatic ecosystems,
and how to gauge the response of river
systems to both land-use changes and
restoration efforts. River systems are
still responding to historic changes,
and degraded habitat may not be SUC-
cessfullv restored if natural conditions