Features

Coexisting with biodiversity

Illustrations © Authors

For road project developers, "biodiversity" is often synonymous with constraints, difficulties or even opposition to the implementation of projects. A century ago, however, the road sector witnessed the birth of road ecology, an applied science designed to formalise interactions between biodiversity and road transport and provide an objective basis for choices in this area. Given the similarity of numerous issues with other types of infrastructure such as railways, waterways and electricity transport, road ecology has since expanded to transport ecology. It has seen the birth of its own think-tanks and the structuring of scientific communities on all continents. Roads play a leading role here due to the inherent complexity of the various types of vehicles which travel upon them, the diversity of the territories that they cross and their openness to various interactions.