公路走廊投资的生物多样性指南：从全球生物多样性信息设施中收集新数据

Biodiversity Guidance for RoadCorridor Investments Mobilizing New Data from the Global BiodiversityInformation FacilityPublic Disclosure Authorized Susmita DasguptaBrian BlankespoorDavid Wheeler Development EconomicsDevelopment Data & Research GroupsOctober 2025 A verified reproducibility package for this paper isavailable athttp://reproducibility.worldbank.org,clickherefor direct access. Policy Research Working Paper11238 Abstract Roads are key drivers of economic growth and form a dom-inant feature in many landscapes. With road infrastructuresteadily expanding—and projections indicating significantgrowth—it is important to ensure that road constructionand upgrades do not trigger direct and indirect biodiver-sity loss, especially in ecologically sensitive areas. For roadinfrastructure to contribute meaningfully to both economicdevelopment and environmental protection, reliable dataonlocation-specific species distributions,abundance,and conservation status is essential. This paper presents amethodology for identifying road corridors where biodi-versity conservation should be a priority for infrastructureplanning. Using more than 600,000 species habitat mapsderived from Global Biodiversity Information Facilityoccurrence records, the approach gives greater attentionto plants and invertebrates, which are often overlooked instandard assessments. Designed for multi-processor cloud computing, the system will allow rapid, frequent updatesas the Global Biodiversity Information Facility expands. Bycombining high-resolution species maps with country-spe-cific road corridor maps generated by tailored algorithms,the paper classifies species into four conservation prioritygroups based on endemism and habitat size—giving high-est priority to endemic species with small habitats. Themethod is applied to 190 countries worldwide. The resultsindicate that biodiversity risk along road corridors varieswidely; endemism strongly influences biodiversity-sensitiveroad placement; and critical corridors for endemic specieswith small habitats are relatively few and geographicallyclustered. These findings suggest that significant gains inbiodiversity conservation can be achieved by focusing roadplanning efforts on a limited number of priority areas, evenin countries with constrained budgets. The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely thoseof the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank andits affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. Biodiversity Guidance for Road Corridor Investments:Mobilizing New Data fromthe Global Biodiversity Information Facility Susmita DasguptaBrian BlankespoorDavid Wheeler Keywords:Road Infrastructure Planning; Biodiversity Conservation; Endemic Species;Species with Small Habitats; GBIF Occurrence Data JEL:Q57; O18; Q01; Q56 Acknowledgements:We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Global Data Facility. 1. Introduction Conserving biodiversity is vital for ensuring sustainable development, reducing poverty,sharing prosperity, and maintaining a healthy planet. Ecosystems rich in biodiversityunderpin human well-being by providing essential services such as food security, cleanwater, and climate stability. These natural systems are the foundation of key sectors likeagriculture, fisheries, and forestry, playing a critical role in lifting communities out ofpoverty and supporting long-term economic development. Biodiversity also supportssectors such as pharmaceuticals and nature-based tourism by generating employmentand economic opportunities, thereby contributing to broader economic development andshared prosperity. Protecting biodiversity also enhances ecosystem resilience, which isessential for stable climatic conditions, as ecosystems like forests, wetlands, and oceansabsorbcarbon and buffer against extreme weather events.Hence,safeguardingbiodiversity is not only an environmental imperative but also a cornerstone of globalsustainability and human prosperity. Despite growing awareness of the link between human well-being and nature, biodiversityis declining at an alarming rate. A major UN report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES 2019) reviewed around15,000 scientific and government sources and found that 1 million species are nearextinction. It also reported that extinctions are happening much faster than before. Pimmet al. (2014) estimated that the current extinction rate is over 1,000 times higher than th