The use of regional advance mitigation planning (RAMP) to integrate transportation infrastructure impacts with sustainability; a perspective from the USA

Abstract

Globally, urban areas are expanding, and their regional, spatially cumulative, environmental impacts from transportation projects are not typically assessed. However, incorporation of a Regional Advance Mitigation Planning (RAMP) framework can promote more effective, ecologically sound, and less expensive environmental mitigation. As a demonstration of the first phase of the RAMP framework, we assessed environmental impacts from 181 planned transportation projects in the 19 368 km 2 San Francisco Bay Area. We found that 107 road and railroad projects will impact 2411-3490 ha of habitat supporting 30-43 threatened or endangered species. In addition, 1175 ha of impacts to agriculture and native vegetation are expected, as well as 125 crossings of waterways supporting anadromous fish species. The extent of these spatially cumulative impacts shows the need for a regional approach to associated environmental offsets. Many of the impacts were comprised of numerous small projects, where project-by-project mitigation would result in increased transaction costs, land costs, and lost project time. Ecological gains can be made if a regional approach is taken through the avoidance of smallsized reserves and the ability to target parcels for acquisition that fit within conservation planning designs. The methods are straightforward, and can be used in other metropolitan areas.

Mainstreaming Flora Conservation Strategies into the Mitigation Hierarchy to Strengthen Environmental Impact Assessment

“…Based on practical guidance (BBOP 2012b ; IFC 2012 ; CSBI 2015 ; Gullison et al 2015 ) and literature (Thorne et al 2014 ; Tallis et al 2015 ; Phalan et al 2017 , among others), we propose that flora conservation strategies can be mainstreamed into the MH to guide EIA planning as presented in Fig. 2 .…”

A systematic review of indicators to assess the sustainability of road infrastructure projects

“…The two most frequently used criteria are socio-ecological system integrity and livelihood security and opportunity. The criterion socio-ecological system integrity is often used to develop indicators that refer to project effects across scales from climate change and ozone layer depletion at a global scale [11,24,48,55,71], to soil and local water quality at a fine spatial scale [45,60,81]. The criterion socio-ecological system integrity is associated with the indicators concerning the mitigation of species habitat fragmentation, land use management, and pollution prevention.…”

Environmental impacts of climate change adaptation

“…However, what is often lacking is the assessment of cumulative impacts of individual projects promoted by governments, NGOs, donors, etc., to reduce vulnerability from various perspectives. Such integration is necessary in the close future, and some analysis at regional scales and multisectoral are emerging (Thorne et al, 2014).…”