Roads and other transportation infrastructure often form dangerous barriers to animals and fragment their habitats. These barriers cause traffic victims, but they also create small, more or less isolated areas in which a number of species cannot survive. The construction of wildlife crossings such as ecoducts or tunnels "defragment" the habitats but are often expensive investments. In order to ensure that the investments are well spent, there is a need to quantify the possible effects of defragmentation measures.
VITO developed the Defragmentation tool. A practical deployable software instrument that offers a modeling approach to map potential defragmentation locations and to quantify the effects of defragmentation on habitats (migration, foraging and breeding habitats) of species.
Thanks to this tool and its results, targeted and efficient defragmentation measures can be rolled out.
In collaboration with the Research Institute for Nature and Forest and the Roads and Traffic Agency
2016