Abstract
China extracts billions of tons of construction aggregates (i.e., coarse and fine aggregates, and limestone for cement production) annually. However, the biodiversity impacts of such extensive extraction remain poorly understood. As the world advances toward new conservation goals outlined in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, a spatially explicit understanding of these impacts is urgently needed. To assess the potential species richness loss caused by land use change associated with construction aggregate mining in China, we compiled and estimated the historical consumption and extraction of construction aggregates over the past five decades. These extractions were spatially allocated to 1-km grid cells with high suitability for construction mining and then converted to mining area extents using empirically derived relationships. We overlaid these mining areas with current global species richness grids for terrestrial vertebrates, derived from IUCN species range maps, to assess potential biodiversity impacts. This overlap enabled the identification of biodiversity hotspots at risk from mining-induced land use change. The results indicate that China has extracted a total of 154 Gt of construction aggregates and limestone for cement production. This corresponds to 2,596 km² of land directly converted for mining activities. Notably, there are many construction mining areas intersecting with grid cells of high species richness. Moreover, the total area affected is much larger when considering the indirect impacts, particularly the surrounding 5-km buffer zones. Construction mining is expected to cause considerable biodiversity loss in China through land use change. Suitable policies concerning aggregate resource management should be developed to conserve biodiversity.
Presenters
S. Thomas NgChair Professor, Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Assessing Impacts in Diverse Ecosystems
KEYWORDS
Mining, Construction aggregate, Resource management, Biodiversity loss, China
