Land suitability assessment for supporting transport planning based on carrying capacity and construction demand

PLoS One. 2021 Feb 8;16(2):e0246374. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0246374. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

With the rapid global urbanization, the unlimited increasing transportation infrastructure has met the needs of urban expansion, but it has caused a series of ecological problems lacking consideration of ecological conservation. The land suitability assessment for supporting transport planning based on carrying capacity and demand for construction is an effective way to promote urban socioeconomic development and ecological conservation. Therefore, we constructed a logical framework of resources and environment supporting, traffic construction demand driving, and ecological protection red line and basic farmland constraining, and applied the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), GIS, three-dimensional magic cube method, and gravity model to evaluate the suitability of expressway development in Sichuan Province, China. The results showed that the spatial difference in the carrying capacity of resources and environment and the demand for expressway construction was relatively high in Sichuan, and those in eastern cities were even higher. The land suitability for supporting transport planning was relatively high, and the suitable areas with a grade from 8 to 10, accounted for 20.77% of the total study area, which could almost meet the demand for transportation infrastructure construction. The land suitability performed a circle structure with Chengdu as the core and gradually decreasing to the periphery. Overall, this study adds new insights to transport planning reform in other similar regions around the world and can provide important references for regional development planning and environmental protection.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • China
  • Cities
  • Conservation of Natural Resources*
  • Ecosystem*
  • Urban Renewal
  • Urbanization*

Grants and funding

This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41101078), Key Science and Technology Projects in Transportation industry of China (No.2018-MS5-127), Science and Technology Project of Henan Provincial Department of Transportation (No.2020G-2-15), and Postgraduate Demonstration Course Construction Project of Guangdong Province (No.2017SFKC32).The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.