Large scale spatio-temporal patterns of road development in the Amazon rainforest

Abstract

SUMMARYThere is burgeoning interest in predicting road development because of the wide ranging important socioeconomic and environmental issues that roads present, including the close links between road development, deforestation and biodiversity loss. This is especially the case in developing nations, which are high in natural resources, where road development is rapid and often not centrally managed. Characterization of large scale spatio-temporal patterns in road network development has been greatly overlooked to date. This paper examines the spatio-temporal dynamics of road density across the Brazilian Amazon and assesses the relative contributions of local versus neighbourhood effects for temporal changes in road density at regional scales. To achieve this, a combination of statistical analyses and model-data fusion techniques inspired by studies of spatio-temporal dynamics of populations in ecology and epidemiology were used. The emergent development may be approximated by local growth that is logistic through time and directional dispersal. The current rates and dominant direction of development may be inferred, by assuming that roads develop at a rate of 55 km per year. Large areas of the Amazon will be subject to extensive anthropogenic change should the observed patterns of road development continue.