Because of continuing urbanization, suburban landscapes of larger cities in Korea are fragmented to a degree that remaining small number of wildlife species are in danger of extinction. Eco-corridors are prescribed sometimes for newly built arterial roads in and around cities to provide connections for wildlife between separated natural landscape units. Though about fifty eco-corridors of various types have been built during last decade in this country, our field survey reveals we need many more of them and some of the built ones are not serving their purposes as they were not sited at proper locations and/or they were not designed properly. This research proposes a comprehensive approach to plan eco-corridors including a computer simulation of wildlife dispersal to find out proper locations. For the computer simulation, a software using ?Visual C++? is developed and it uses digital maps of land cover which are made by the Ministry of Environment of Korea. In addition to the computer simulation, the comprehensive approach incorporates monitoring data of wildlife collected with sensor cameras, and the approach takes into consideration wildlife road-kill counts compiled by the Korea Highway Corporation. It is hoped this approach help to build many more eco-corridors functioning properly not only on newly built roads but also on existing roads.
Key words: eco-corridor, monitoring using sensor cameras, computer simulation of wildlife dispersal, road-kill counts
- Website : http://
- Project start : 2003
- Project end : 2004
- Contact Person : Tong Mahn Ahn
- Funding Agency : Ministry of Environment, Korea