Abstract
Human footprint models allow visualization of human spatial pressure across the globe. Up until now, Antarctica has been omitted from global footprint models, due possibly to the lack of a permanent human population and poor accessibility to necessary datasets. Yet Antarctic ecosystems face increasing cumulative impacts from the expanding tourism industry and national Antarctic operator activities, the management of which could be improved with footprint assessment tools. Moreover, Antarctic ecosystem dynamics could be modelled to incorporate human drivers. Here we present the first model of estimated human footprint across predominantly ice-free areas of Antarctica. To facilitate integration into global models, the Antarctic model was created using methodologies applied elsewhere with land use, density and accessibility features incorporated. Results showed that human pressure is clustered predominantly in the Antarctic Peninsula, southern Victoria Land and several areas of East Antarctica. To demonstrate the practical application of the footprint model, it was used to investigate the potential threat to Antarctica’s avifauna by local human activities. Relative footprint values were recorded for all 204 of Antarctica’s Important Bird Areas (IBAs) identified by BirdLife International and the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR). Results indicated that formal protection of avifauna under the Antarctic Treaty System has been unsystematic and is lacking for penguin and flying bird species in some of the IBAs most vulnerable to human activity and impact. More generally, it is hoped that use of this human footprint model may help Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting policy makers in their decision making concerning avifauna protection and other issues including cumulative impacts, environmental monitoring, non-native species and terrestrial area protection.
Highlights
Antarctica, taken to be the area south of latitude 60 ̊S, is increasingly subject to conservation challenges, including the impacts of climate change, habitat disturbance and destruction, nonnative species introductions and increasing biological homogenization resulting from increasing inter-regional connectivity [1, 2, 3, 4]
Modelling of the current distribution of human activities in Antarctica revealed a footprint that was largely concentrated in the northern Antarctic Peninsula region and southern Victoria Land, as well as several isolated and predominantly coastal areas in East Antarctica (Fig 1 and S4 Table)
The Antarctic Peninsula scored some of the highest footprint values, and in particular the ice-free areas of the South Shetland Islands and northern Antarctic Peninsula, where numerous stations and visitor sites are concentrated (Fig 2)
Summary
Antarctica, taken to be the area south of latitude 60 ̊S, is increasingly subject to conservation challenges, including the impacts of climate change, habitat disturbance and destruction, nonnative species introductions and increasing biological homogenization resulting from increasing inter-regional connectivity [1, 2, 3, 4]. Circa 99.8% of the continent’s 14,000,000 km area is covered with permanent ice or snow [7] and, of this, only c 6,000 km is found within 2 km of the coast and suitable for the establishment of research stations that can be relatively resupplied by ship [8]. This is the area that supports the majority of Antarctica’s macroscopic terrestrial life and provides breeding sites for bird populations. Antarctica’s bird populations may be vulnerable to local human activities such as visitor disturbance and aircraft over flight, in addition to global environmental impacts, such as climate change, which may affect habitats and food availability [13, 14, 15, 16, 17]
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