Highways to Success or Byways to Waste: Estimating the Economic Benefits of Roads in Africa

Barra, Alvaro Federico; Berg, Claudia N.; Damania, Richard; Nash, John; Russ, Jason; Ali, Rubaba

doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-0654-4

Cited by 12 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Estimates predict that an additional 25 million km of roads will be constructed by 2050, almost entirely (90%) in developing countries (Dulac, 2013;Ascensão et al, 2021). Roads are essential to economic growth and improved quality of human life; however, these man-made features can also negatively impact wildlife by partitioning habitats and increasing wildlife mortality due to collisions with vehicles (Ali et al, 2015;Carter et al, 2020;Ascensão et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying Landscape Degradation Following Construction of a Highway Using Landscape Metrics in Southern Iran

Mohammadi

Fatemizadeh

2021

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Rapid expansion of roads is among the strongest drivers of the loss and degradation of natural habitats. The goal of the present study is to quantify landscape fragmentation and degradation before and after the construction of the Isfahan-Shiraz highway in southern Iran. To this end, the ecological impacts of the highway on forests, rangelands, and protected areas were evaluated. Impacts of the construction of the highway were studied within a 1,000-m buffer around the road, which was then overlaid on maps of forests, rangelands, and protected areas. Class area, number of patches, largest patch index, edge density, landscape shape index, mean patch size, and patch cohesion index were used to gauge changes in the spatial configuration of the landscape; the ecological impacts of the highway were quantified using effective mesh size (MESH), division index, and splitting index. The results indicated that after the construction of the highway, 6,406.9 ha of forest habitat, 16,647.1 ha of rangeland habitat, and 912 of the Tang-e Bostanak Protected Area will be lost. The effective MESH metric showed that after the construction of the highway, the area of forest, rangeland habitats and protected area will decrease by 20,537, 49,149, and 71,822 ha, respectively. Our findings revealed drastic habitat loss and landscape fragmentation associated with construction of the highway, serving as references for conservation planning and development.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying Landscape Degradation Following Construction of a Highway Using Landscape Metrics in Southern Iran

Mohammadi

Fatemizadeh

2021

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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“…Accordingly, economic indicators such as GDP (or GDP per capita) have been considered a "yardstick" for measuring the progress of development for decades [10]. It is widely accepted that rural transport infrastructure is a critical driver of economic growth and development, as it contributes to market access, agricultural production, creation of firms, and poverty reduction, and generally facilitates the movement of goods and people [4,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Further, the literature describes the agriculture sector as the dominant activity [21] and the "backbone" of many local economies in LMICs [22], recognizing that a large portion of the world's rural poor depend upon agriculture for both income and subsistence [7].…”

Section: Economic and Agricultural Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rural Transportation Infrastructure in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Review of Impacts, Implications, and Interventions

Kaiser

Barstow

2022

Sustainability

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The rural transport infrastructure sector is a critical force for sustainable development that is interwoven with many other sectors. Rural transportation is an underlying driver of many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a crucial contributor to many socioeconomic benefits for rural people around the world. This review paper expands upon, enhances, and cross-references the perspectives outlined in previous rural infrastructure-focused review papers. Firstly, this work gives a thorough look into the progress of the rural transportation sector in recent years by focusing on the thematic relationships between infrastructure and other components of sustainable development, namely, economics and agriculture, policy and governance, health, gender, education, and climate change and the environment. Secondly, several strategies, approaches, and tools employed by governments and practitioners within the rural transport sector are analyzed and discussed for their contributions to the wellbeing of rural dwellers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). These include rural roads, bridges, maintenance, and non-infrastructural approaches that include concepts such as advanced technological innovations, intermediate modes of transport (IMTs), and transport services. This paper concludes that enhancement, improvement, and extension of rural transportation infrastructure brings significant benefits to rural dwellers. However, this paper also calls for additional integration of the sector and increased usage of systems approaches that view rural transport as an active part of many other sectors and a key leverage point within rural development as a whole. Further, this paper notes areas for future research and investigation, including increased investigation of the relationship between rural transportation infrastructure and education, improved data collection and management in support of improved policymaking, improved prioritization of interventions and institutionalization of maintenance, and expansion of pro-poor transportation strategies and interventions.

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“…These systems have played a major role in the integration of intermodal networks. These network systems could be a point-to-point system which entails transporting freight from one point (origin) to another point (destination) without transhipment [14]. There is also the corridor system which uses services such as the land bridge to ensure efficient distribution of freight.…”

Section: Integration Of Key Nodes Into the Intermodal Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Possible Sustainability of Intermodal Transportation in Africa

Chenikwi¹,

Wang²

2019

OJAppS

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The lack of adequate and modern transport infrastructures makes the cost of transport in Africa higher than the rest of the world. Most of the transport infrastructures that exist were constructed during the colonial era which makes interregional connectivity difficult. The African Union in collaboration with other organization has committed to bridge the transport gap in Africa but still, face some challenges. This paper discusses the main issues that contribute for the weak nature of transportation in Sub-Saharan Africa with regards to the main transport modes and seeks to establish the possibility of sustainable intermodal transport through the integration of the different transport modes. Some policy reforms and other bilateral agreements such as deregulating the transport markets in West and Central Africa have been suggested to facilitate the development of an effective and efficient transport network in the Sub-Saharan African region.

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Highways to Success or Byways to Waste: Estimating the Economic Benefits of Roads in Africa

Cited by 12 publications

References 29 publications

Quantifying Landscape Degradation Following Construction of a Highway Using Landscape Metrics in Southern Iran

Quantifying Landscape Degradation Following Construction of a Highway Using Landscape Metrics in Southern Iran

Rural Transportation Infrastructure in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Review of Impacts, Implications, and Interventions

Possible Sustainability of Intermodal Transportation in Africa

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