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Effects of Vehicles on Arctic Tundra

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Warren E. Rickard Jr  and
Jerry Brown
Warren E. Rickard Jr
Affiliation:
Respectively Botanist & Research Soil Scientist and Director, U.S. Tundra Biome, U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (USACRREL), Hanover, New Hampshire 03755, U.S.A.
Jerry Brown
Affiliation:
Respectively Botanist & Research Soil Scientist and Director, U.S. Tundra Biome, U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (USACRREL), Hanover, New Hampshire 03755, U.S.A.
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Extract

Travel in the Arctic is nowadays predominantly by aircraft or by specifically designed overland vehicles, as few roads exist. Terrain damage resulting from off-road vehicular movement in arctic areas is potentially serious—particularly in the wetter, ice-rich permafrost terrain. Detailed examinations of vehicle trails made in the 1940s indicate that natural recovery and stabilization of these trails has been relatively slow. Several recent controlled tests using a variety of vehicles suggest that long-term impact of the vehicles on the terrain is a function of time of year, type of substrate, vegetation, soil moisture, ground-contact pressure, type of vehicle propulsion (i.e. tracks, air-cushion, etc.), and operator technique.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , Spring 1974 , pp. 55 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1974

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