Roads & SDGs, tradeoffs and synergies: learning from Brazil's Amazon in distinguishing frontiers

Alexander Pfaff, Juan Robalino (), Eustáquio J. Reis, Robert Walker, Stephen Perz, William Laurance, Claudio Bohrer, Steven Aldrich, Eugenio Arima, Marcellus Caldas and Kathryn R. Kirby

No 2017-83, Economics Discussion Papers from Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel)

Abstract: To inform the search for SDG synergies in infrastructure provision, and to reduce SDG tradeoffs, the authors show that road impacts on Brazilian Amazon forests have varied significantly across settings. Forest loss varied predictably with prior development - both prior roads and prior deforestation - and in a spatial pattern suggesting a synergy between forests and urban growth in such frontiers. Examining multiple roads investments, the authors estimate impact for settings of high, medium and low prior roads and deforestation. Census-tract observations are numerous for each setting and reveal a pattern, not consistent with endogeneity, that confirms our predictions for this kind of frontier. Impacts are: low after relatively high prior development; larger for medium prior development, at the forest margin; then low again for low prior development. For the latter setting, the authors note that in such isolated areas, interactions with conservation policies influence forest impacts over time. These Amazonian results suggest "SDG strategic" locations of infrastructure, an idea they suggest for other frontiers while highlighting differences in those frontiers and their SDG opportunities.

Keywords: deforestation; roads; infrastructure; climate change; biodiversity; Brazil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H23 H41 O12 O13 Q23 Q24 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-cta, nep-dev, nep-env and nep-tre
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/discussionpapers/2017-83
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/175840/1/Economics-DP-2017-83.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201783

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Discussion Papers from Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().