The Geographic Information System (GIS) has been commonly used to analyse and elaborate the big data of urban mobility in modern cities. At the same time a range of studies has been utilizing it to examine various kinds of movements in... more
The Geographic Information System (GIS) has been commonly used to analyse and elaborate the big data of urban mobility in modern cities. At the same time a range of studies has been utilizing it to examine various kinds of movements in old times, especially those on a large territorial scale. This article aims to highlight the use of GIS in the study of urban mobility of Rome during the 18th century, drawing on textual evidence and archives. The results of this work will offer new hypothesises around the most trafficked zones and the main routes of movement traveled in the Italian capital during this period
Functional connectivity modeling is increasingly used to predict the best spatial location for over- or underpasses, to mitigate road barrier effects and wildlife roadkills. This tool requires estimation of resistance surfaces, ideally... more
Functional connectivity modeling is increasingly used to predict the best spatial location for over- or underpasses, to mitigate road barrier effects and wildlife roadkills. This tool requires estimation of resistance surfaces, ideally modeled with movement data, which are costly to obtain. An alternative is to use occurrence data within species distribution models to infer movement resistance, although this remains a controversial issue. This study aimed both to compare the performance of resistance surfaces derived from path versus occurrence data in identifying road crossing locations of a forest carnivore and assess the influence of movement type (daily vs. dispersal) on this performance. Resistance surfaces were built for genet (Genetta genetta) in southern Portugal using path selection functions with telemetry data, and species distribution models with occurrence data. An independent roadkill dataset was used to evaluate the performance of each connectivity model in predicting roadkill locations. The results show that resistance surfaces derived from occurrence data are as suitable in predicting roadkills as path data for daily movements. When dispersal was simulated, the performance of both resistance surfaces was equally good at predicting roadkills. Moreover, contrary to our expectations, we found no significant differences in locations of roadkill predictions between models based on daily movements and models based on dispersal. Our results suggest that species distribution models are a cost-effective tool to build functional connectivity models for road mitigation plans when movement data are not available.
