Heterogeneity in Road-building Processes and Road Network Architecture: A Comparison of Two Amazonian Arenas and Implications for Projecting Future Land Cover
Stephen
G
Perz, University of Florida, sperz@soc.ufl.edu
(Presenting)
Marcellus
M
Caldas, Michigan State University, caldasma@msu.edu
Robert
T
Walker, Michigan State University, rwalker@msu.edu
Previous work on the impact of roads on land cover, ecology and climate has rarely drawn distinctions in the social processes or spatial architecture of road networks. However, socio-spatial processes of road-building are closely tied together, vary across the Amazon, and greatly determine patterns of forest fragmentation and its ecological and climatic consequences. Here we report fieldwork and present data products from research on road-building in two distinct arenas of the Brazilian Amazon: the Transamazon corridor, a smallholder colonization zone characterized by the well-known “fishbone” pattern, and central Mato Grosso, an agorindustrial frontier with a very different road architecture. We compare the socio-spatial processes behind these distinct road networks, and present data products to visualize their contrasting impacts on land cover. Our analysis shows the heterogeneity of road network structures, due to the different histories and interest groups at work in road-building. This implies that projections of future forest cover in the Amazon, and the consequences of distinct fragmentation patterns, needs to account for locally distinct socio-spatial processes of road-building.