Wildlife & Traffic

A European Handbook for Identifying Conflicts and Designing Solutions

1 Introduction
Original version (2003)
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Roads, railways and waterways

As the title indicates, the solutions in the handbook are designed to deal with different kinds of transport infrastructure, not just roads. Railways can also have a big impact on nature and create barriers even though rail networks and traffic are far less dense than roads. In several European countries, there are massive networks of waterways used for transportation, comprised of both natural rivers and man-made canals. Nevertheless, it is the road network and road traffic that constitute the major pressure on wildlife. Although, the expression 'transportation infrastructure' is used throughout the handbook to cover all three transportation systems, most of the examples and the measures explained in the handbook are related to roads. Many of the measures are, however, equally suitable for reducing the impact of railways.