“Transforming Transportation Ecology in the Global Village”
Transforming the traditional relationship between transportation and ecology has been the foundation of contemporary transportation ecology research and practical applications. The twenty-first century to date, and these past two years in particular, have highlighted the challenges and opportunities that face humanity in its relationship with nature, including through our built infrastructure. Achieving real transformation will require exploring and re-thinking how we study infrastructure interactions with natural systems, how to eliminate negative impacts of transportation improvements and operations, and how to restore ecosystem functions lost or degraded through past actions. This conversion includes reconsideration of project and program delivery mechanisms, reevaluation of the framework for acceptance of impacts and mitigation, and real investment in transportation sustainability. The global pandemic, economic downturns, and increased attention to societal inequities have each highlighted the need for and the promises of transforming how we do business to responsibly care for both nature and humanity while delivering safe and efficient transportation services.
Impacts to natural processes, species and habitats, and socioeconomic conditions are expected under the current model of infrastructure project development. We work to avoid or minimize those impacts to the greatest extent practicable. We compensate for the unavoidable impacts as feasible, knowing that the replacement is rarely as potent as the original. This accepted methodology undoubtedly results in the irretrievable net loss of ecological functions and values. The perennial challenge for transportation ecologists and their partners is to seek answers to this question, “How can we rethink the paradigm of project concept, development, and implementation to result in no negative impacts to the environment, or even to the benefit of both the natural and human environments?”
As we continue to work together to meet this challenge and strive to transform the relationship between transportation and natural systems in the global village, it is increasingly critical to collaborate with diverse communities, interdisciplinary teams, international partners, and the next generation of transportation scientists. ICOET’s 20-year history has served as a premier global conduit for understanding and restoring the interrelation between linear infrastructure and nature. In an all-virtual platform, ICOET 2021 will once again serve as a beacon to scientists, engineers, planners, academics, practitioners, and policy makers to share this inspiration throughout the world - to ask tough questions and seek creative solutions to ignite the transformation of transportation ecology throughout the global village.
Program Topics
The ICOET program will include numerous types of presentations covering a broad range of topics. When submitting your abstract for a presentation, choose one of the following general topics that best fits your material. Presentations should explore the relationship between, cause or effects, or components of each of the program topics specifically with transportation ecology concepts.
This list is alphabetical and does not represent prioritization of certain topics.
- Advancing innovative technologies
- Aquatic species/ecosystem and wetland interactions
- Climate change: adaptation, mitigation, resilience
- Culture shifts in transportation
- Decommissioning or repurposing existing infrastructure
- Economics
- Enhancing infrastructure systems for net ecological gain
- Global pandemics / COVID-19 / zoonotic disease
- Global village
- New technology and virtual interconnectedness
- International policy innovations
- Indigenous communities
- Socioeconomic status
- Human migration and population distribution trends
- Lessons from policy applications
- Linear transportation beyond roadways (railroads, pipelines, transmission lines, etc.)
- Mainstreaming ecology in transportation planning and program delivery
- Mitigation / Restoration
- Pollinators and habitat management
- Social justice / Socioeconomic inequity
- Storm-water and water quality management
- Terrestrial wildlife and ecosystem interactions
- Trends across transportation modes (rail, air, sea, land, mass transit, bike/walk)
- Vegetation management
- Wildlife movement: connectivity, safety
- Workforce and community diversity