Workshop Interactions between linear Infrastructure and territories: A new European handbook
Abstract

The European road network not only provides an extensive and vital transport system but it also results in impacts on the surrounding environment. Consequently, road investments are subjected to extensive discussions between road authorities and environmental authorities. In order to achieve a more cost-efficient approach to comply with environmental demands, including demands from the various EU Directives, a Transnational Research Call - known as “Roads and Wildlife” - was commissioned by the Conference of European Directors of Roads (CEDR) in 2013 to ensure the latest knowledge and best practices related to wildlife are adopted during the development and maintenance of road infrastructure. The aim of the CEDR call was to understand the effectiveness of various mitigation strategies in order to solve the conflict between wildlife and roads, and investigate more cost-efficient methods for building and maintaining road structures as well as structures for reducing road impacts on wildlife. In 2014 three projects, known as SAFEROAD, HARMONY and SAFEBATPATHS, were successfully procured under this call. These projects will be completed in the first half of 2016. In a next step, CEDR aims to use the outcomes of these projects to extend the COST 341 Handbook. This handbook was published in 2003 and is widely used. However, knowledge on road mitigation strategies has significantly increased over the past decade. Therefore the need for an update of the handbook became evident. At this workshop we will present a draft of the new handbook - further referred to as CEDR Roads and Wildlife Manual - and will ask for your feedback in order to improve the practical value of the drafted guidelines. The workshop will consist of a plenary introduction with a presentation of the new handbook, followed by two parallel sessions in which the focus is on cost-efficient road mitigating strategies for wildlife (session 1), and cost-efficient road maintenance practices for wildlife (session 2). In these moderated sessions participants will be asked to share their ideas, opinions and recommendations. These consultations will be used to better meet the needs of practitioners in the new handbook.

Keywords
road mitigation; road maintenance; de-fragmentation; handbook