Scientists, regional planners and members of the public will discuss growing concerns about the environmental effects of human travel in the fragile Sierra Nevada ecosystem at a workshop this weekend, Oct. 22-24, at Fallen Leaf Lake, near South Lake Tahoe. The workshop, "Sociological and Ecological Consequences of Roads in the Sierra Nevada," begins Friday night with dinner speaker Charles Goldman, UC Davis professor of environmental science and policy, on the topic "Lake Tahoe: The Legacy of Four Decades of Roads, Road Salt and Development." On Saturday morning, keynote speaker Richard Forman, a Harvard University professor of landscape ecology, will discuss "Road Systems and Habitat Fragmentation." In the Sierra Nevada, development in the foothills and resort areas, changing recreation habits of visitors, and continuing logging and mining have led to calls for new, cohesive, research-guided management plans. Scientists from throughout the UC system will play key roles in those new programs. Nationally, environmental concerns about the Sierra and other lands at risk have sparked the birth of a new research field called road ecology, said Fraser Shilling, the workshop's organizer and program coordinator for the UC Davis-based Sierra Nevada Network for Education and Research. "Ecologists, hydrologists, sociologists, transportation planners and land managers are coming together in this new field to address fundamental research and planning issues for roads in rural environments," Shilling said. The workshop, to be held at Stanford Sierra Camp on Fallen Leaf Lake, is sponsored by the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies and the University of California, Merced. For more information, see .