A global map of roadless areas and their conservation status.

Roads fragment landscapes and trigger human colonization and degradation of ecosystems, to the detriment of biodiversity and ecosystem functions. The planet’s remaining large and ecologically important tracts of roadless areas sustain key refugia for biodiversity and provide globally relevant ecosystem services. Applying a 1-kilometer buffer to all roads, we present a global map of roadless areas and an assessment of their status, quality, and extent of coverage by protected areas. About 80% of Earth’s terrestrial surface remains roadless, but this area is fragmented into ~600,000 patches, more than half of which are <1 square kilometer and only 7% of which are larger than 100 square kilometers. Global protection of ecologically valuable roadless areas is inadequate. International recognition and protection of roadless areas is urgently needed to halt their continued loss.

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DCAT-AP/NTI-RISP

Basic information
Resource type Text
Date of creation 2024-09-17
Date of last revision 2024-09-17
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Metadata identifier 13dac7c4-e14a-5d6b-b0f7-9e81d3e46c61
Metadata language Spanish
Themes (NTI-RISP)
High-value dataset category
ISO 19115 topic category biota
Other identifier
Keyword URIs
Character encoding UTF-8
Spatial information
INSPIRE identifier ESPMITECOIEPNBFRAGM615
INSPIRE Themes
Geographic identifier Spain
Coordinate Reference System
Spatial representation Type
Bounding Box
"{\"type\": \"Polygon\", \"coordinates\": [[[-18.16, 27.64], [4.32, 27.64], [4.32, 43.79], [-18.16, 43.79], [-18.16, 27.64]]]}"
Spatial resolution of the dataset (m)
Provenance
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Source dataset
Update frequency
Sources
  1. Science. Vol. 354
  2. Num. 6318
  3. pags. 1.423-1.427
Purpose
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Responsible Party
Name of the dataset creator Ibisch, P.L., Hoffmann, M.T., Kreft, S., Pe'er, G., Kati, V., Biber-Freudenberger, L., Dellasala, D., Vale, M.M., Hobson, P.R. y Selva, N.
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Identifier of the dataset maintainer
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