Visual recovery of desert pavement surfaces following impact

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TitleVisual recovery of desert pavement surfaces following impacts from vehicle and foot traffic in the Ross Sea region of AntarcticaAbstractSites of past human activity were investigated to assess the visual recovery of the desert pavement following impacts from human trampling and vehicle traffic. Visually disturbed and nearby control sites were assessed using comparative photographic records, a field-based Visual Site Assessment, and Desert Pavement Recovery Assessment. Sites included: vehicle and walking tracks at Marble Point and Taylor Valley; a campsite, experimental treading trial site, and vehicle tracks in Wright Valley; and vehicle and walking tracks at Cape Roberts. The time since last disturbance ranged from three months to over 50 years. This investigation also attempted to determine what has the greatest lasting visual impact on soil surfaces in the Ross Sea region: dispersed trafficking or track formation? Walking tracks remained visible in the landscape (due to larger clasts concentrating along track margins) long after the desert pavement surface had recovered. However, randomly dispersed footprints were undetectable within five years. For many sites, allowing widespread trampling will give lower medium-term visible impact than concentrating traffic flow by track formation. For steep slopes and sites where repeated visits occur, use of a single track is recommended. Some 1950s vehicle tracks remain visible in the Antarctic landscape, but where visually obvious impacts were remediated, evidence of former occupation was almost undetectable. Copyright Antarctic Science Ltd 2013.AcknowledgementsThe authors wish to thank Antarctica New Zealand for logistic support over the summers of 2008/09 and 2009/10. Funding was provided by the Landcare Research Murray Jessen Memorial Doctoral Scholarship. We are grateful to Errol Balks for field assistance, Margaret Auger and Nathan Cross for science support at Scott Base, and Jana Newman for technical advice. We appreciate the useful comments from reviewers.Funding DetailsAntarctica New Zealand

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1st AuthorO'Neill, T.AuthorO'Neill, T.Balks, M.López-Martínez, J.Year2013JournalAntarctic ScienceVolume25Number4Pages514-530DOI10.1017/S0954102012001125URLhttps://www.scopus.com/inward/recor.....6bfc118e8efc5de7b65276705Keywordsrank5

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TypeArticleCitationO'Neill, T., Balks, M. and López-Martínez, J. (2013) Visual recovery of desert pavement surfaces following impacts from vehicle and foot traffic in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica. Antarctic Science, 25(4): 514-530 doi:10.1017/S0954102012001125 IdentifierONeill2013bRelevancerank5

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Balks, M.