The Ecological Impact of Transportation Infrastructure

Asher, Sam; Garg, Teevrat; Novosad, Paul

doi:10.1093/ej/ueaa013

Cited by 68 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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Section: Recommendation Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Researchers hypothesize that approximately 25 million km of new roads will be constructed by 2050 [196], with a large amount, potentially as high as 90%, being constructed in LMICs [15,191,198]. In many of these locations, roads will be constructed in some of the world's last remaining pristine wilderness areas, despite evidence that roads attract new forms of activity which directly impact land usage, forest cover, and particular species, and may contribute to larger-scale environmental degradation [9,15,191,192,195,196,198,201]. Accordingly, new evidence suggests moving away from reactive approaches to environmental damage limitation [201] and supporting conservative and proactive enforcement strategies that minimize irreversible effects without prohibitively expensive postconstruction modifications [191,195,196].…”

Section: Recommendation Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Encouraging governments to tackle even small environmental protection actions in a timely fashion, by promoting specific goals and objectives and including positive reinforcement, has been successful in particular circumstances [203]. The complexity of the associated balancing act will warrant cooperation and collaboration between political frameworks, ecological experts, and rural infrastructure planners [9] to effectively manage the trade-offs between social and economic benefits in the short term and environmental impacts in the long term [198].…”

Section: Recommendation Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Especially in poor rural areas, which are dependent on minimal transportation infrastructure, finding context-specific means to adapt to climate change and mitigate negative effects will be a priority in coming years [198]. A balance between short-and long-term costs and benefits will be required [194], as well as collaboration between multisectoral bodies that can ultimately combine to drive thoughtful policy-making activities [59,71,74].…”

Section: Recommendation Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

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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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Section: Recommendation Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Recommendation Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Recommendation Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Recommendation Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

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

Kaiser

Barstow

2022

Sustainability

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“…With the expansion of transportation infrastructure, the influence of human activities expands. For example, Asher et al discussed the impact of country road facilities construction on the forest ecological environment, and the results showed that the facility construction has no direct impact on forest quality, but the upgrading of roads has caused changes in ecological corridors, which have led to adverse environmental impacts [24]. The continuous expansion of human activities puts tremendous pressure on the ecological environment within the radiation range of transportation infrastructure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of the Impact of Land Use Change on Spatial Differentiation of Landscape and Ecosystem Service Values in the Case of Study the Pearl River Delta in China

Yang

Qin

Lin

2021

Land

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Industrialization and urbanization have led to continuous urban development. The rapid change in land-use type and extent has a significant impact on the capacity of ecosystem services. Changes in the landscape pattern of roads, rivers, railway stations, and expressway entrances and exits have evident geographical proximity effects. We used landscape pattern indices and ecosystem service value (ESV) to evaluate the landscape pattern and ESV spatial differentiation of the Pearl River Delta region and its typical transportation infrastructure and rivers in 1990, 2000, and 2017. The results show that rapid urbanization and industrialization have led to changes in urban land use along the Pearl River Estuary. Urban land changes on the east bank of the Pearl River are greater than urban land changes on the west bank of the Pearl River; the landscape diversity of the Pearl River Delta has increased, the connectivity of the landscape has decreased, and the degree of fragmentation has increased. Second, the city size of the Pearl River Delta was negatively correlated with the ESVs. The ESVs in the core areas of the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration were smaller than those in the fringe areas. With the gradient change in urban land use, ESVs showed a growing trend from the city center to the surrounding areas. The key areas for ecological protection and restoration should be central urban areas and suburbs. Third, the siphoning effect of the buffer zones of railway stations and expressway entrances and exits was very strong and drove the development and utilization of the surrounding land. As the degree of land development in the buffer zone decreased, the ESVs increased. Fourth, different grades of roads in the Pearl River Delta had different impacts on the regional landscape and ESVs. County roads had a greater interference effect than expressways, national roads, and provincial roads, and the riverside plains of the Pearl River Delta have a large development space, low urban development costs, and multiple land-use activities that have profoundly changed the landscape of the river buffer zone.

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Communal land conservation in northern Ethiopia: The relationship between urban area access and individual and social norms

et al. 2022

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SubSaharan Africa has experienced rapid market economy development in urban areas and in terms of road network systems connecting urban and rural areas. As the access to urban areas improves, the influence of economic development may alter local norms regarding the conservation of communal lands in rural areas. This study investigates how access from rural to urban areas affects individual and social norms regarding communal land conservation. We used interview data from 110 village leaders and 660 farmers' community group leaders in northern Ethiopia. Individual moral norms were estimated based on the respondents' willingness to participate in communal tree planting on communal lands as a means of halting and reversing land degradation. Social norms were estimated based on the proportion of exclosure in communal areas and the number of days a community member works without pay for communal land conservation. The relationships between the norms and urban access were investigated using probit and tobit regression models. The results reveal that access to urban areas positively affects the establishment of individual and social norms, suggesting that access to urban areas contributes to communal land conservation by facilitating intervention in rural areas, thus improving norms for natural resource management.

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The Ecological Impact of Transportation Infrastructure

Cited by 68 publications

References 56 publications

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

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

Assessment of the Impact of Land Use Change on Spatial Differentiation of Landscape and Ecosystem Service Values in the Case of Study the Pearl River Delta in China

Communal land conservation in northern Ethiopia: The relationship between urban area access and individual and social norms

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