Human Accessibility Modelling Applied to Protected Areas Management

Abstract

Natural protected areas in tropical regions are considered important refuges for flora and fauna, and the only remaining habitat for many species. However, these areas still suffer from numerous human impacts, whether by illegal hunting, logging or tourism. Mapping areas of greater human access and its potential effect to wildlife should be considered as strategy for management in protected areas. This study aimed to generate a human accessibility map for the Anchieta Island, for purposes of zoning and management. We evaluated the impact of human presence (tourism) on the occurrence of wildlife at Anchieta Island by using the concept of human accessibility. Accessibility model was correlated with estimated travel-time using Pearson's Correlation and showed significant positive relationship (r = 0.714) between accessibility model and travel time observed in the field. Thus, the accessibility methodology can be a valuable tool to analyze human impacts on wildlife through hunting and logging in protected areas.

Earth transformed: detailed mapping of global human modification from 1990 to 2017

“…Human intrusion (a.k.a. "use"; Theobald, 2008) uses central place theory (Alonso, 1960) and integrates human accessibility throughout a landscape from defined locations, typically along roads and rails, as well as to off-road areas from urban areas (Theobald et al, 2010;Esteves et al, 2011;Theobald, 2013;Larson et al, 2018). Accessibility measured in travel time in minutes is calculated from each mapped settlement point j (e.g., cities, towns, villages) from GRUMP v1.01 and GPW v4 (CIESIN, 2017(CIESIN, , 2018.…”

GIS and Spatial Analysis Meet Conservation: a Promising Synergy to Address Biodiversity Issues

“…"Spatial patterns of biodiversity", the most frequent research theme, was addressed by 80% of the articles (see Diniz-Filho & Bini 2011;Werneck et al 2011;Hortal & Lobo 2011;Souza et al 2011). "Threats and impacts on biodiversity" and "biodiversity assessment, management and monitoring" were the research theme in more than 30% of the papers (see Esteves et al 2011;Koblitz et al 2011). The themes "habitat fragmentation and connectivity" and "measures of ecosystems properties, goods and services" were addressed by more than 25% of the papers, and are also present in this special issue (respectively in Crouzeilles et al 2011;Holvorcem et al 2011;Ladle et al 2011).…”

A GIS Approach to Estimating Tourists' Off-road Use in a Mountainous Protected Area of Northwest Yunnan, China

“…In addition to supporting priority setting, the accessibility data have a number of other applications relevant to biodiversity conservation and resource management. Examples include estimation of resource use by villagers, such as the size of the area in which herding or collection of non-timber forest products takes place (Ullah 2011), prediction of exotic species introduction by human activities (Potito and Beatty 2005), or design of management or planning zones for a variety of end uses, particularly for areas that are appropriate for low-impact tourism (Sabatini et al 2007;Esteves et al 2011). Accessibility data can also be used in search and rescue operations to map areas where lost tourists are more likely to be found (Heggie and Heggie 2009).…”