Study on Ecological Risk Evaluation and Optimum Selection of Desert Expressway Schemes Based on the Two-Dimensional Cloud Model

Abstract

Aimed at the fragile ecological environment in desert, once the resources along routes are destroyed, it will be difficult to restore the original ecological equilibrium in a short time. This paper studies the ecological-equilibrium-oriented risk evaluation of desert motorway schemes in order to choose route schemes reasonably and prevent the sandstorm aggravation caused by ecological damage. Having insight into the special geographical environment and road construction characteristics of Tengger Desert, the research establishes an index system for the ecological risk evaluation in desert areas from five aspects: the interference of living environment of animals and plants, the destruction of natural ecological landscapes, the pollution of water and soil resources, the development and utilization of natural resources, and the sand fixation of plants and the subsequent maintenance; then it confirms each evaluation index’s weight by using the set-valued statistics method to transform the description of the evaluation indexes to an interval value and furthermore determines the comprehensive ecological risk evaluation level of the route scheme in virtue of the two-dimensional cloud image MATLAB outputs which takes the ecological damage and remediation cost as the basic variables. By constructing the model under the method above, the ecological risk evaluations of two route schemes in Zhongwei sand crossing section of Wuhai-Maqin Expressway have been made. The result shows that the western route scheme’s evaluation grade is “good,” is better than the southern route scheme, is within the scope of acceptable risk, agrees with the practical project condition, and verifies the applicability and effectiveness of the model for ecological risk evaluation in desert areas.