A better Amazon road network for people and the environment

The rapidly expanding network of roads into the Amazon is permanently altering the world’s largest tropical forest. Most proposed road projects lack rigorous impact assessments or even basic economic justification. This study analyzes the expected environmental, social and economic impacts of 75 roa...

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Published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 117; no. 13; pp. 7095 - 7102
Main Authors Vilela, Thais, Harb, Alfonso Malky, Bruner, Aaron, da Silva Arruda, Vera Laísa, Ribeiro, Vivian, Alencar, Ane Auxiliadora Costa, Grandez, Annie Julissa Escobedo, Rojas, Adriana, Laina, Alejandra, Botero, Rodrigo
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Academy of Sciences 31.03.2020
SeriesFrom the Cover
Subjects
Accounting
Deforestation
Development projects
Economic analysis
Economic impact
Economic justification
Environmental impact
Environmental impact assessment
Impact analysis
PNAS Plus
Roads
Roads & highways
Social Sciences
Tropical forests
Viability
cost–benefit analysis
Amazon
roads network
deforestation
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Summary:The rapidly expanding network of roads into the Amazon is permanently altering the world’s largest tropical forest. Most proposed road projects lack rigorous impact assessments or even basic economic justification. This study analyzes the expected environmental, social and economic impacts of 75 road projects, totaling 12 thousand kilometers of planned roads, in the region. We find that all projects, although in different magnitudes, will negatively impact the environment. Forty-five percent will also generate economic losses, even without accounting for social and environmental externalities. Canceling economically unjustified projects would avoid 1.1 million hectares of deforestation and US$ 7.6 billion in wasted funding for development projects. For projects that exceed a basic economic viability threshold, we identify the ones that are comparatively better not only in terms of economic return but also have lower social and environmental impacts. We find that a smaller set of carefully chosen projects could deliver 77% of the economic benefit at 10% of the environmental and social damage, showing that it is possible to have efficient tradeoff decisions informed by legitimately determined national priorities.
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Edited by Arun Agrawal, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, and approved February 13, 2020 (received for review June 24, 2019)
Author contributions: A.M.H. designed research; T.V., V.L.d.S.A., V.R., A.A.C.A., A.R., A.L., and R.B. performed research; T.V., A.M.H., A.B., V.L.d.S.A., V.R., A.A.C.A., and A.J.E.G. analyzed data; and T.V., A.M.H., and A.B. wrote the paper.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1910853117