Sequenced Road Investments & Clearing Of The Mayan Forest

Roads are widely said to be one of the most important predictors of frontier expansion and deforestation in tropical forest regions, across a range of land dynamics . Though they are widely studied, careful documentation of the magnitude of roads’ impacts is in fact relatively scarce. Not infrequently, a simple aerial or satellite snapshot is said to ‘document’ the impacts of reduced transport costs. More generally, average cross-sectional correlations of forest amount and road density are offered but are insufficient to demonstrate a causal link or to establish its magnitude. Further, even if causality and magnitudes were well established, within the design of development policies for which the balance of development and degradation outcomes is important, it would be helpful to know how deforestation and related consequent impacts vary with the context in which the road investment is made . We suggest, and demonstrate, that to address these questions it is exceptionally helpful to be able to track the sequence of road investments underlying the most recent available road map as well as the sequence of clearing underlying the latest forest map.