Trampling is the act of walking on something repeatedly by humans or animals.
Trampling on open ground can destroy the above ground parts of many plants and can compact the soil, thereby creating a distinct microenvironment that specific species may be adapted for.
It can be used as part of a
wildlife management
Wildlife management is the management process influencing interactions among and between wildlife, its Habitat, habitats and people to achieve predefined impacts. Wildlife management can include wildlife conservation, population control, gamekeepi ...
strategy along
grazing
In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to free range (roam around) and consume wild vegetations in order to feed conversion ratio, convert the otherwise indigestible (by human diges ...
.
When carrying out investigations like a
belt transect, trampling should be avoided. At other times, it is part of the
experimental design
The design of experiments (DOE), also known as experiment design or experimental design, is the design of any task that aims to describe and explain the variation of information under conditions that are hypothesized to reflect the variation. ...
.
Trampling can be a
disturbance to ecology and
to archaeological sites.
References
{{ecology-stub
Human impact on the environment
Ecology