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Thanks !

i've worked this out a month or two ago...

The tourist roads alone cover in tar: 850km. And in gravel: 1444km. That is a total of 2294km.

Lets convert everything to m and then to m².

2294km x 1000 = 2,294,000m of tourist roads.

The Park is 22000km² or 22,000,000,000m². (km² = km x km therefore 1000m x 1000m = 1,000,000m². 1,000,000 x 22000 = 22,000,000,000m²).

Now lets say that the roads are on avg 6.5m wide.
Tourists roads cover 2,294,000m x 6.5m = 14,911,000m².

(14,911,000/22,000,000,000) x 100 = 0.0677%.

Multiplying it by 5 would be 0.3389%. Is this correct?



To illustrate the area we as tourists manage to see of Kruger from the roads alone lets say for argument's sake that we can see on avg 200m far into the bush.

2,294,000m of road x 200m visibility = 458,800,000m².

(458,800,000/22,000,000,000) x 100 = 2,085%.

That is an awful small percentage and we all should regard ourselves as very fortunate to spot anything from the tourists roads.

Why wtm....why why why

I've left out firebreaks, Imberbe. Shall i include that too?

NOO...youb are herewith banned from this thread

@ WTM: This time of night my head is too flat to even think about doing the sums. (Good excuse! ) So why don't you do this one.

The length of all roads in KNP is (plus minus) 7 926 km (as in 2003).

I have the distance from hereas: 6494km.



Anyhoo...

Length: 7926km = 7,926,000m.
Width: 6.5m
Surface: 51,519,000m²

Park size: 22,000,000,000m²

Percentage of area covered by roads:
( 51,519,000m²/22,000,000,000m²) x 100 = 0.2341773%.

Now: Multiplying the roads' width by 5 to give a road impact factor: 32.5m.

Surface: 32.5 x 7,926,000 = 257,595,000m².

Percentage of area affected road surface cover:
(257,595,000m²/22,000,000,000m²) x 100 = 1.1708%.

How does that sound?

I blame the above on Hunters Dry

I blame myself for ever starting this topic

Regarding the use of elephant "highways", that is what the builders of the Kariba dam did. I have read a book about the Zambezi river and the Kariba dam where it is written that when they decided where to build the dam, they had to look for a route to build the road to the site. Then someone came up with the idea to follow the ancient elephant migration routes to the Zambezi. Apparently the ele's found the shortest route but also the one with the most gradual drop in elevation from the highlands to the Zambezi valley.

What is also very interesting is that the elephants remembered their routes. According to the writer of the book, it was reported by a person that was involved in operation Noah(to save the animals that was trapped by the rising waters of the Kariba lake) that an elephant approached the lake where its path entered the lake and started to swim across the vast Kariba. They thought that the ele would drown so they followed it by boat. The elephant swam right across and....exited the lake on the exact spot where its path continued on the Zambian side.

This will be funny to a lot of formites,but,do you know what i miss so much, is that smell of a knp dirt road, quite unique, not so great when someone overtakes you !!--mike

There's a very good example of an Elephant highway on one of the morning walks out of the Nyalaland Trail Camp

WTM were you smoking the ellie dung again?????????

uh huh...