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12 Jul 2012: Mountain Roads Trigger
Longterm Consequences in Southeast Asia

The rapid expansion of roads across the rural mountains of Southeast Asia often triggers unintended environmental consequences that in many cases undermine the socioeconomic benefits, according to an article in the journal Nature Geoscience. While international organizations have supported “aggressive” efforts to expand road networks to increase agricultural development, trade, and tourism in remote regions, poorly designed mountain roads can cause landslides, soil erosion, and increased deforestation, write researchers Roy Sidle and Alan Ziegler. An increase in road density has been “directly linked to drastic transformation, or even elimination, of traditional shifting cultivation methods (as practiced in rural uplands) and have been implicated in deforestation and land exploitation in remote regions,” they note. Without proper drainage systems, these roads can destabilize hillside and soil erosion, degrading water quality, aquatic habitats, and agricultural productivity.

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