Module 2: Need for the Harmonization

The largest mountain chains in Europe, represented by the Alps and the Carpathians, which belong to the species richest ecosystems on earth, are connected by the traditional migration ways of numerous wild animals of the highest importance. These internationally important routes run from the eastern alpine foothills of Austria through Rosaliengebierte, through Leithagebirege, Maria Ellender Wald, through the floodplain forests of the Danube and the Morava River, the Záhorie Lowland to the Small Carpathians. Not long ago, large mammals living in forests such as deer, wolf, bear or lynx and with them a wide variety of other forest animal species could migrate without difficulty through the corridor between the Alps and the Carpathians. Today, this corridor runs through one of the most economically dynamic regions in Europe -- the metropolitan region of Vienna - Bratislava - Györ. Intensive land use, top-class roads and built-up areas, as well as intensive agricultural land use have significantly affected the important functions of this corridor. The progressive urbanization of the landscape and the construction of technical and transport infrastructure, mainly represented by motorways, interrupt traditional animal migration ways in many places. There is a risk that migration between animal populations will stop as a result of these barriers and their habitats will be confined to some isolated islands. Consequently, the lack of genetic exchange may result in depletion and subsequent extinction of smaller populations.

The Alpine-Carpathian Corridor project supports the objectives of the Alpine Convention, the Bonn Convention for the Conservation of Migrant, Wildlife and, last but not least, the Convention on Biological Diversity. The project has a wide international response, e.g. within the framework of the European Danube Strategy and cooperates with other projects of similar focus. The Alpine-Carpathian Corridor, alongside the Green Belt along the former Iron Curtain, is an important migration route of European dimension. The European Union has committed Member States to support the landscape elements linking the Natura 2000 sites, even if these elements have not been assessed as valuable habitats to date.

The overriding objective of the Alpine-Carpathian Corridor project is to implement sectoral and transboundary activities to ensure the interconnection of living spaces along the corridor linking the Alps and the Carpathians in order to ensure sustainable development in this area by better balancing the different demands for this space. In cooperation with nature conservation and spatial planning in Austria and Slovakia, together with partners from the fields of transport, agriculture and forestry, hunting and tourism, but especially in cooperation with municipalities, concrete measures should be defined and modelled to ensure the functioning of the bio-corridor between Alps and Carpathians. Through the localization of green bridges over motorways corresponding to the migratory behaviour of wild animals, the permeability of the Alpine-Carpathian Corridor should be achieved and thus the genetic exchange among wildlife populations should be improved.

LINEAR TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES AS THE OBJECTS OF HARMONIZATION WITH WILDLIFE

The most efficient way, how to avoid or to minimise the conflicts and negative effects of the transport on the wildlife is reflection of the needs to protect the wildlife in the processes of the development of the transport infrastructure.

The effects and potentials for their minimizing differ depending on transport mode (car transport, pedestrian transport, bicycle transport, railways, air transport, cable lines, pipelines, waterways and channels), geographical contexts (landscape features, modes of use of the territory) and element of transport infrastructure. These guidelines are focused on linear infrastructure represented predominantly by different categories of roads and railway lines (including supportive and complementary infrastructural elements like crossings, stops, stations, bridges, tunes etc.) as they are most common among transport infrastructure in the countryside and to big extend representative in dealing with the conflicts between transport infrastructure and wildlife

The process of the development of the roads and railway lines is very similar and includes the logic of steps starting with the scoping, via planning, designing, construction and use/maintenance and monitoring.

scheme

Detailed look at the content of these phases shows differences depending of the kick-of situation. Based on this we can distinguish basically 3 modes of development processes:

A. [Development of new roads and railway lines or their parts]{.underline}

The overall flow of logically interlinked steps is represented by the phases shown in the following diagram:

scheme

B. [Update of existing roads and railways (modernising, extension in former corridors, increase of capacities, speed ...)]{.underline}

The processes of the development of linear transport infrastructure via update of existing roads and railways have following specifics in the comparison with the new infrastructure development:

The logic scheme of the process of the roads and railways development focused on update of existing infrastructure is specific by the integration of the phases of planning and projecting as the strategic dimension of those phases is limited by absence of the localisation decisions.

scheme

C. [Improving ecological status of existing routes and railways]{.underline}

Development of the linear transport infrastructure via improving its ecological status of existing routes and railways is a specific case of up-date of the infrastructure. As in some cases the efficiency of the particular technical interventions implemented directly on the road / railway line depends on supportive interventions in broader area, the process has to include the planning and implementing ecologic, managerial and organisational intervention in broader area.

scheme scheme

Module 2: Need for the Harmonization

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