Cliff roads: An ecological conservation technique for road construction in mountainous regions of China

Cliff ecosystems are important for biodiversity protection because these sites often support surprisingly ancient and diverse communities, including rare plants and lichens, trees, birds, and small mammals. To protect Chinese cliff ecosystems, an ancient cliff road construction technique is now being used. To understand the environmental benefits of this approach, we monitored eight cliff road sites in the warm Shennongjia region of China's Hubei Province from June 2006 to July 2009 during road construction. Compared with the traditional filling in of roadside slopes or bridge construction formerly used for highway construction in this area, the cliff highway technique, which combines cantilevered slab roads along the edge of the cliff with bridge support structures where additional support is required, reduces environmental damage and represents a good option for the conservation of fragile cliff ecosystems, while greatly reducing the construction cost. In such areas, the basic objectives of road construction must include biodiversity protection and careful control of the construction process and subsequent cleanup of the site, which cannot be ignored as a result of concentrating on the goal of using the roads to promote regional economic and tourism development.