Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:46:41.891Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abele, G., Parrott, W. & Atwood, D.. (1972). Effects of SK-5 Air Cushion Vehicle Operations on Organic Terrains. U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (USACRREL) Internal Report, Hanover, New Hampshire: 141 pp., illustr. (mimeographed).Google Scholar
Abele, G., Rickard, W. & Atwood, D. (1973). Effects of SK-5 Air Cushion Vehicle Operations on Organic Terrains after One Year. U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory USACRREL Internal Report, Hanover, New Hampshire: 79 pp., illustr. (mimeographed).Google Scholar
Anon, . (1971). Territorial Land Act (Sors/71–580). Canada Gazette Part II, 105(22), pp. 1908–27.Google Scholar
Anon, . (1972 a). Executive Order 11644: Use of off–road vehicles on the public lands. Federal Registry, 37(27), pp. 2–4.Google Scholar
Anon, . (1972 b). 1972 North Slope Tundra Cleanup Group. Final Report, 11 pp., illustr. (Available drom Atlantic Richfield Company, Anchorage, Alaska.)Google Scholar
Baab, T.. (1972 a). High-arctic disturbance studies. Pp. 230–81 in Botanical Studies of Natural and Man-modified Habitats in the Eastern Mackenzie Delta Region and the Arctic Islands (Ed. Bliss, L. C. & Wein, R. W.). Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Ottawa, ALUR Contract Report, 288 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Baab, T. (1972 b). High-arctic manipulation and vegetation disturbance studies. Pp. 369–91 in Devon Island IBP Project, High Arctic Ecosystem 1970 and 1971 Project Report (Ed. Bliss, L. C.). University of Alberta Press, Edmonton: 413 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Bliss, L. & Wein, R. W. (1972). Plant community responses to disturbances in the western Canadian arctic. Canadian Journal of Botany, 50, pp. 1097–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, J. & West, G. C. (1970). Tundra biome research in Alaska: the structure and function of cold-dominated ecosystems. U.S. IBP-Tundra Biome Report, 70–1, pp. 66–71, illustr.Google Scholar
Burt, G. R. (1970 a). Summer travel on the tundra with low ground-pressure vehicles. Institute of Arctic Environmental Engineering, University of Alaska, Note 7004, 9 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Burt, G. R. (1970 b). Travel on thawed tundra. Institute of Arctic Environmental Engineering, University of Alaska, Note 7005, 23 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Challinor, J. L. (1970). Vehicle Perturbation Effects Upon a Tundra Soil–plant System. Unpublished M. S. Thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 240 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Colby, L. R. (1969). Performance evaluation of a cushioncraft CC-7 hovercraft in the Mackenzie River Delta area. Pp. 30–55 in Trials of a CC-7 Air Cushion Vehicle in Canada, May-August 1969, Canadian Department of Transportation, Ottawa: 136 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Hernandez, H. (1972). Surficial disturbance and natural plant recolonization in the Mackenzie Delta region. Pp. 143–74 in Botanical Studies of Natural and Man-modified Habitats in the Eastern Mackenzie Delta Region and the Arctic Islands (Ed. Bliss, L. C. & Wein, R. W.). Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Ottawa, ALUR Contract Report, 288 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Hok, J. (1969). A Reconnaissance of Tractor Trails and Related Phenomena on the North Slope of Alaska. U.S. Dept of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, 66 pp.Google Scholar
Kerfoot, D. E. (1972 a). Tundra Disturbance Studies in the Western Canadian Arctic. Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Ottawa, ALUR Contract Report, 112 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Kerfoot, D. E. (1972 b). Topographic aspects of artificial disturbances to the tundra in the Mackenzie Delta area, N.W.T. Pp. 157–74 in Mackenzie Delta Area Monograph (Ed. Kerfoot, D. E.). Brock University, St Catherines, Ontario: 174 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Kevan, P. G. (1971). Vehicle Tracks on High Arctic Tundra: An 11-Year Case History Around Hazen Camp, Ellesmere Island, N.W.T. Defense Research Board of Canada Report, Ottawa, Hazen 41, 17 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Klein, D. R. (1970). The impact of oil development in Alaska (a photo essay). Pp. 209–42 in Proceedings of the Conference on Productivity and Conservation in Northern Circumpolar Lands (Ed. Fuller, W. A. & Kevan, P. G.). IUCN, Morges: 344 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Lambert, J. D. H. (1972). Botanical Changes Resulting from Seismic and Drilling Operations, Mackenzie Delta Area. Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Ottawa, ALUR Contract Report, 70 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Miller, P. & Tieszen, L. (1972). A preliminary model of processes affecting primary production in the arctic tundra. Arctic and Alpine Research, 4, pp. 1–18.Google Scholar
Nakano, Y. & Brown, J. (1972). Mathematical modeling and validation of the thermal regimes in tundra soils, Barrow, Alaska. Arctic and Alpine Research, 4, pp. 19–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polunin, N. (1960). Introduction to Plant Geography and Some Related Sciences. Longmans, London, and Barnes & Noble, New York: xxi + 640 pp., illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polunin, N. (1970). Tundra. Pp. 957–9 in The Encyclopedia of the Biological Sciences, 2nd edn (Ed. Gray, Peter). Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, etc.: xxv + 1027 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Radforth, J. R. (1972). Analysis of Disturbance Effects of Operations of Off-road Vehicles on Tundra. Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Ottawa, ALUR Contract Report, 77 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Rempel, G. (1970). Arctic terrain and oil-field development. Pp. 243–51 in Proceedings of the Conference on Productivity and Conservation of Northern Circumpolar Lands (Ed. Fuller, W. A. & Kevan, P. G.). IUCN, Morges: 344 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Rickard, W. (1972). Preliminary ecological evaluation of the effects of air-cushion vehicle tests on the arctic tundra of northern Alaska. USACRREL Special Report 182, 22 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Wein, R. W. (1971). Appendix IV: Revegetation—A preliminary report on revegetation trials related to the proposed gas arctic pipeline. In Internal Report No. 1: Towards an Environmental Impact Assessment of a Gas Pipeline from Prudhce Bay, Alaska, to Alberta. Environmental Protection Board, Winnipeg, Manitoba, 49 pp., illustr.Google Scholar