Sustainable development: The promise and perils of roads.

Abstract

A global map of the potential economic benefits of roads together with the environmental damage they can inflict provides a planning tool for sustainable development. See Letter p.229 As the human population and resource use continue to increase, so does the need for transport. Roads bring socioeconomic benefits such as facilitating agricultural production, but road building is often carried out haphazardly, and much of the expected expansion in roads will occur in ecologically important areas. More careful planning could be critical to mitigating its potentially detrimental environmental impacts. This study combines data on the predicted socioeconomic benefits of new roads with measures of environmental value across the world, creating a 'global roadmap' of the balance between human and environmental aspects of road-building. The authors identify areas where road-building can be encouraged, where it should be avoided, and where conflicts of interest will require careful decision-making.