Dig trenches around culverts under roads/railways

How is the evidence assessed?
  • Effectiveness
    10%
  • Certainty
    20%
  • Harms
    0%

Study locations

Key messages

  • One study evaluated the effects on mammals of digging trenches around culverts under roads and/or railways. This study was in South Africa.

COMMUNITY RESPONSE (0 STUDIES)

POPULATION RESPONSE (1 STUDY)

BEHAVIOUR (0 STUDIES)

About key messages

Key messages provide a descriptive index to studies we have found that test this intervention.

Studies are not directly comparable or of equal value. When making decisions based on this evidence, you should consider factors such as study size, study design, reported metrics and relevance of the study to your situation, rather than simply counting the number of studies that support a particular interpretation.

Supporting evidence from individual studies

  1. A replicated, randomized, controlled, before-and-after study in 2015 along a road through dry savanna in Limpopo, South Africa (Collinson et al. 2017) found that digging trenches alongside culverts did not reduce the number of mammals killed on roads. Results were not tested for statistical significance. One mammal (a South African pouched mouse Saccostomus campestris) was detected as a roadkill near culverts after trenches were dug and one (a red veld rat Aethomys chrysophilus) was found before they were dug. Over the same period, near culverts where no trenches were dug, two multimammate rats Mastomys sp. were detected as roadkills after trenches were dug at treatment sites and one was found before trenches were dug. The study was conducted in January–February 2015 along 400-m-long road sections with 2-m-wide culverts. In three sections, a 30-cm-deep trench, 2 m from the road verge, was dug for 200 m on either side of the culvert. Three road sections had no trench. Roadkills were counted at all sites over 20 days before the trench was dug and 20 days afterwards, by an observer in a car moving at 40–50 km/h.

    Study and other actions tested
Please cite as:

Littlewood, N.A., Rocha, R., Smith, R.K., Martin, P.A., Lockhart, S.L., Schoonover, R.F., Wilman, E., Bladon, A.J., Sainsbury, K.A., Pimm S. and Sutherland, W.J. (2020) Terrestrial Mammal Conservation: Global Evidence for the Effects of Interventions for terrestrial mammals excluding bats and primates. Synopses of Conservation Evidence Series. University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.

Where has this evidence come from?

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Terrestrial Mammal Conservation

This Action forms part of the Action Synopsis:

Terrestrial Mammal Conservation
Terrestrial Mammal Conservation

Terrestrial Mammal Conservation - Published 2020

Terrestrial Mammal Conservation

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