Environmental impacts of infrastructure development under the Belt and Road Initiative
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the largest infrastructure scheme in our lifetime, bringing unprecedented geopolitical and economic shifts far larger than previous rising powers. Concerns about its environmental impacts are legitimate and threaten to thwart China’s ambitions, especially si...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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2019
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61357/ |
| _version_ | 1848799866709344256 |
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| author | Teo, Hoong Chen Lechner, Alex Mark Walton, Grant W. Chan, Faith Ka Shun Cheshmehzangi, Ali Tan-Mullins, May Chan, Hing Kai Sternberg, Troy Campos-Arceiz, Ahimsa |
| author_facet | Teo, Hoong Chen Lechner, Alex Mark Walton, Grant W. Chan, Faith Ka Shun Cheshmehzangi, Ali Tan-Mullins, May Chan, Hing Kai Sternberg, Troy Campos-Arceiz, Ahimsa |
| author_sort | Teo, Hoong Chen |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the largest infrastructure scheme in our lifetime, bringing unprecedented geopolitical and economic shifts far larger than previous rising powers. Concerns about its environmental impacts are legitimate and threaten to thwart China’s ambitions, especially since there is little precedent for analysing and planning for environmental impacts of massive infrastructure development at the scale of BRI. In this paper, we review infrastructure development under BRI to characterise the nature and types of environmental impacts and demonstrate how social, economic and political factors can shape these impacts. We first address the ambiguity around how BRI is defined. Then we describe our interdisciplinary framework for considering the nature of its environmental impacts, showing how impacts interact and aggregate across multiple spatiotemporal scales creating cumulative impacts. We also propose a typology of BRI infrastructure, and describe how economic and socio-political drivers influence BRI infrastructure and the nature of its environmental impacts. Increasingly, environmental policies associated with BRI are being designed and implemented, although there are concerns about how these will translate effectively into practice. Planning and addressing environmental issues associated with the BRI is immensely complex and multi-scaled. Understanding BRI and its environment impacts is the first step for China and countries along the routes to ensure the assumed positive socio-economic impacts associated with BRI are sustainable. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:42:28Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-61357 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:42:28Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-613572020-08-19T08:41:12Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61357/ Environmental impacts of infrastructure development under the Belt and Road Initiative Teo, Hoong Chen Lechner, Alex Mark Walton, Grant W. Chan, Faith Ka Shun Cheshmehzangi, Ali Tan-Mullins, May Chan, Hing Kai Sternberg, Troy Campos-Arceiz, Ahimsa China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the largest infrastructure scheme in our lifetime, bringing unprecedented geopolitical and economic shifts far larger than previous rising powers. Concerns about its environmental impacts are legitimate and threaten to thwart China’s ambitions, especially since there is little precedent for analysing and planning for environmental impacts of massive infrastructure development at the scale of BRI. In this paper, we review infrastructure development under BRI to characterise the nature and types of environmental impacts and demonstrate how social, economic and political factors can shape these impacts. We first address the ambiguity around how BRI is defined. Then we describe our interdisciplinary framework for considering the nature of its environmental impacts, showing how impacts interact and aggregate across multiple spatiotemporal scales creating cumulative impacts. We also propose a typology of BRI infrastructure, and describe how economic and socio-political drivers influence BRI infrastructure and the nature of its environmental impacts. Increasingly, environmental policies associated with BRI are being designed and implemented, although there are concerns about how these will translate effectively into practice. Planning and addressing environmental issues associated with the BRI is immensely complex and multi-scaled. Understanding BRI and its environment impacts is the first step for China and countries along the routes to ensure the assumed positive socio-economic impacts associated with BRI are sustainable. 2019-06-19 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en cc_by https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61357/1/ilovepdf_merged%20%2825%29.pdf Teo, Hoong Chen, Lechner, Alex Mark, Walton, Grant W., Chan, Faith Ka Shun, Cheshmehzangi, Ali, Tan-Mullins, May, Chan, Hing Kai, Sternberg, Troy and Campos-Arceiz, Ahimsa (2019) Environmental impacts of infrastructure development under the Belt and Road Initiative. Environments, 6 (6). p. 72. ISSN 2076-3298 China; Belt and Road Initiative; BRI; One Belt One Road; infrastructure; environmental impacts; environmental impact assessment; transboundary conservation; silk road http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/environments6060072 doi:10.3390/environments6060072 doi:10.3390/environments6060072 |
| spellingShingle | China; Belt and Road Initiative; BRI; One Belt One Road; infrastructure; environmental impacts; environmental impact assessment; transboundary conservation; silk road Teo, Hoong Chen Lechner, Alex Mark Walton, Grant W. Chan, Faith Ka Shun Cheshmehzangi, Ali Tan-Mullins, May Chan, Hing Kai Sternberg, Troy Campos-Arceiz, Ahimsa Environmental impacts of infrastructure development under the Belt and Road Initiative |
| title | Environmental impacts of infrastructure development under the Belt and Road Initiative |
| title_full | Environmental impacts of infrastructure development under the Belt and Road Initiative |
| title_fullStr | Environmental impacts of infrastructure development under the Belt and Road Initiative |
| title_full_unstemmed | Environmental impacts of infrastructure development under the Belt and Road Initiative |
| title_short | Environmental impacts of infrastructure development under the Belt and Road Initiative |
| title_sort | environmental impacts of infrastructure development under the belt and road initiative |
| topic | China; Belt and Road Initiative; BRI; One Belt One Road; infrastructure; environmental impacts; environmental impact assessment; transboundary conservation; silk road |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61357/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61357/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/61357/ |