How Do Highways Affect Breeding Birds? A Predictive Analysis with a Highway 413 Case Study

As increased urbanization changes land and encroaches on animals’ natural habitats, it is essential to understand how urban growth affects the environment. Despite their social benefits, highways also harm the species that live along their corridor. This thesis explores how highway investment induces urban growth and change and analyzes all the impacts that this has on breeding bird populations in the Highway 413 corridor. This thesis employs environmental assessment components, notably indirect and cumulative assessment techniques, to analyze the links between urban growth and breeding birds. Findings indicate that Highway 413 will have a significant impact on future land development patterns, while the affects on breeding birds are localized rather than regional. The research also addresses the question of how the Highway 413 would affect breeding birds by using a geographic information system (GIS) to visualize growth and changes to breeding bird distributions and by using R to predict urban growth over time and space.