Our footprint on Antarctica competes with nature for rare ice-free land
Construction and operation of research stations present the most pronounced human impacts on the Antarctic continent across a wide range of environmental values. Despite Antarctic Treaty Parties committing themselves to the comprehensive protection of the environment, data on the spatial extent of i...
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ftunivtasmania:oai:eprints.utas.edu.au:31161 2023-05-15T14:04:48+02:00 Our footprint on Antarctica competes with nature for rare ice-free land Brooks, ST Jabour, J van den Hoff, J Bergstrom, DM application/pdf https://eprints.utas.edu.au/31161/ https://eprints.utas.edu.au/31161/1/Our_footprint_Authors_Approved.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0237-y en eng Nature Publishing Group https://eprints.utas.edu.au/31161/1/Our_footprint_Authors_Approved.pdf Brooks, ST orcid:0000-0002-0516-7841 , Jabour, J orcid:0000-0003-0185-8415 , van den Hoff, J and Bergstrom, DM , 'Our footprint on Antarctica competes with nature for rare ice-free land' , Nature Sustainability , doi: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0237-y. Article PeerReviewed ftunivtasmania 2020-05-30T07:47:05Z Construction and operation of research stations present the most pronounced human impacts on the Antarctic continent across a wide range of environmental values. Despite Antarctic Treaty Parties committing themselves to the comprehensive protection of the environment, data on the spatial extent of impacts from their activities have been limited. To quantify this, we examined the area of building and ground disturbance across the entire continent using GIS mapping of satellite imagery. Here, we report the footprint of all buildings to be >390,000 m2, with an additional disturbance footprint of >5,200,000 m2 just on ice-free land. These create a visual footprint similar in size to the total ice-free area of Antarctica, and impact over half of all large coastal ice-free areas. Our data demonstrate human impacts are disproportionately concentrated in some of the most sensitive environments, with consequential implications for conservation management. This is the highest resolution measurement of the extent of infrastructure across the continent to-date and can be used to inform management decisions to balance sustainable scientific-use and environmental protection of the Antarctic environment. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica University of Tasmania: UTas ePrints Antarctic The Antarctic |
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description |
Construction and operation of research stations present the most pronounced human impacts on the Antarctic continent across a wide range of environmental values. Despite Antarctic Treaty Parties committing themselves to the comprehensive protection of the environment, data on the spatial extent of impacts from their activities have been limited. To quantify this, we examined the area of building and ground disturbance across the entire continent using GIS mapping of satellite imagery. Here, we report the footprint of all buildings to be >390,000 m2, with an additional disturbance footprint of >5,200,000 m2 just on ice-free land. These create a visual footprint similar in size to the total ice-free area of Antarctica, and impact over half of all large coastal ice-free areas. Our data demonstrate human impacts are disproportionately concentrated in some of the most sensitive environments, with consequential implications for conservation management. This is the highest resolution measurement of the extent of infrastructure across the continent to-date and can be used to inform management decisions to balance sustainable scientific-use and environmental protection of the Antarctic environment. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Brooks, ST Jabour, J van den Hoff, J Bergstrom, DM |
spellingShingle |
Brooks, ST Jabour, J van den Hoff, J Bergstrom, DM Our footprint on Antarctica competes with nature for rare ice-free land |
author_facet |
Brooks, ST Jabour, J van den Hoff, J Bergstrom, DM |
author_sort |
Brooks, ST |
title |
Our footprint on Antarctica competes with nature for rare ice-free land |
title_short |
Our footprint on Antarctica competes with nature for rare ice-free land |
title_full |
Our footprint on Antarctica competes with nature for rare ice-free land |
title_fullStr |
Our footprint on Antarctica competes with nature for rare ice-free land |
title_full_unstemmed |
Our footprint on Antarctica competes with nature for rare ice-free land |
title_sort |
our footprint on antarctica competes with nature for rare ice-free land |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group |
url |
https://eprints.utas.edu.au/31161/ https://eprints.utas.edu.au/31161/1/Our_footprint_Authors_Approved.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0237-y |
geographic |
Antarctic The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica |
op_relation |
https://eprints.utas.edu.au/31161/1/Our_footprint_Authors_Approved.pdf Brooks, ST orcid:0000-0002-0516-7841 , Jabour, J orcid:0000-0003-0185-8415 , van den Hoff, J and Bergstrom, DM , 'Our footprint on Antarctica competes with nature for rare ice-free land' , Nature Sustainability , doi: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0237-y. |
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