A method for assessing the physical recovery of Antarctic desert pavements following human-induced disturbances: A case study in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica

• Published in: Journal of Environmental Management
• Main Authors: O'Neill, Tanya Ann, Balks, Megan R., López-Martínez, Jerónimo, McWhirter, Judith L.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2012
• Subjects: Antarctica; Desert pavement; Human impact; Polar desert; Soil recovery; Surface morphology; Antarctic; Ross Sea; Cape Evans; Bull Pass; Antarc*; Antarctica Journal; polar desert
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10289/6710; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2012.08.008

With increasing visitor numbers an understanding of the impacts of human activities in Antarctic terrestrial environments has become important. The objective of this study was to develop a means for assessing recovery of the ground surface desert pavement following physical disturbance. A set of 11 criteria were identified to assess desert pavement recovery. Assessed criteria were: embeddedness of surface clasts; impressions of removed clasts; degree of clast surface weathering; % overturned clasts; salt on underside of clasts; development of salt coatings; armouring per m ²; colour contrast; evidence of subsidence/melt out; accumulation of salt on cut surfaces; and evidence of patterned ground development. Recovery criteria were assigned a severity/extent rating on a scale from zero to four, zero being highly disturbed, and four being undisturbed. A relative % recovery for each criteria was calculated for each site by comparison with a nearby undisturbed control area, and an overall Mean Recovery Index (MRI) was assigned to each pavement surface.To test the method, 54 sites in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica were investigated including areas disturbed by: bulldozer scraping for road-fill, contouring for infrastructure, geotechnical investigations, and experimental treading trial sites. Disturbances had occurred at timescales ranging from one week to 50 years prior to assessment. The extent of desert pavement recovery at the sites investigated in this study was higher than anticipated. Fifty of the 54 sites investigated were in an intermediate, or higher, stage of desert pavement recovery, 30 sites were in an advanced stage of recovery, and four sites were indistinguishable from adjacent control sites (MRI = 100%). It was found that active surfaces, such as the gravel beach deposits at the Greenpeace World Park Base site at Cape Evans, the aeolian sand deposits at Bull Pass, and the alluvial fan deposits of the Loop Moraine field campsite, recovered relatively quickly, whereas less active sites, such as the ...