Treading lightly: how geoscience is revealing the human impacts in Antarctica
Channel: GeoscienceAustralia
Date: 2021-10-18

Antarctica conjures images of expansive white ice sheets but what about the 1% not covered by ice? Though small, these exposed islands of rock are hotspots of human and animal activity. Tourism, infrastructure development, and research activities can harm these fragile environments and in the dry Antarctic climate, damage from walking and vehicle tracks can persist for years. Geoscience Australia’s landscape vulnerability project has been addressing knowledge gaps about how these environments react to disturbance by people, how they recover, and new methods to track landscape change. Through this work, GA is helping build Australia’s capability as a leader in Antarctic environmental stewardship and meet our obligations under the Antarctic Treaty System and domestic legislation.