Title
Identifying differences in roadless areas in Canada based on global, national, and regional road datasets
Author(s)
Poley, Lucy G.; Schuster, Richard; Smith, Wynet; Ray, Justina C.
Published
2022
Publisher
Conservation Science and Practice
Published Version DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.12656
Abstract
Roads are an overwhelming component of the global human footprint and their absence helps identify intact areas with high ecological value. Road-free areas are decreasing globally, making accurate estimation of their location and size of great importance. Identification of such regions requires accurate data, but substantial variability exists in road network datasets created and maintained at different spatial scales. We compared estimates of road length, density, and roadless areas across Canada, which contains a high proportion of the world's remaining undisturbed and road-free areas. Global- and national-scale datasets included, on average, only 11%–14% of roads represented in regional-scale data or volunteered geographic information (VGI), with the most pronounced differences in less-developed areas. Regional-scale datasets, with the lowest estimates of amount of roadless area and smallest mean roadless patch size, are likely the most complete road datasets but are not available for all jurisdictions, limiting their national-scale utility. VGI provides a national-scale alternative but still lacks many low-use roads. Available global and national datasets have insufficient information for accurate assessments of roadless areas in Canada, which will require detailed, consistent subnational datasets assembled and maintained by each province and territory in a coordinated fashion to achieve national coverage.
Keywords
Canada; geospatial data; human footprint; intact ecosystems; road datasets; roadless areas; rural roads; volunteered geographic information; wilderness areas

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PUB27319