A Study on the Correlation between Road-kill Hotspot and Habitat Patches

Abstract

The ecosystem fragmentation due to transportation infrastructure causes road-kill phenomenon. When making policy for reducing road-kill it is important to select target-species in order to enhance its efficiency. However, many corridors installed in Korea have been raised issues about their effectiveness due to lack of considerations such as target-species selection, site selection, and management, etc. In this study, we are to grasp relationship between road-kill area and habitat patches and suggest that spatial location of habitat patches should be considered as one of the important factors when making policy for reducing road-kill. Habitat patches were presumed from overlying suitability index that chosen by literature review and road-kill hotspot was determined by Getis-Ord Gi* analysis. Afterwards, we performed a correlation analysis between Gi Z-score and the distance from habitat patches to the roads. As a result, there is a negative correlation between two variables, It affects the Gi Z-score going up if the habitat patches and the roads become closer.