Landscape and Urban Planning 94 (2010) 228–233

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Landscape and Urban Planning

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landurbplan

Cliff roads: An ecological conservation technique for road construction in

mountainous regions of China
Shixiong Cao a,b,∗ , Huihai Ye a , Yong Zhan c
a
Environmental Engineering Research Center, Research Institute of Highways, Beijing 100088, PR China
b
College of Soil and Water Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, No. 35, Qinhuadong Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100083, PR China
c
Highway Bureau of Hubei Province, Wuhan 430000, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Cliff ecosystems are important for biodiversity protection because these sites often support surprisingly
Received 11 February 2009 ancient and diverse communities, including rare plants and lichens, trees, birds, and small mammals.
Received in revised form 31 July 2009 To protect Chinese cliff ecosystems, an ancient cliff road construction technique is now being used. To
Accepted 8 October 2009
understand the environmental benefits of this approach, we monitored eight cliff road sites in the warm
Available online 7 November 2009
Shennongjia region of China’s Hubei Province from June 2006 to July 2009 during road construction. Com-
pared with the traditional filling in of roadside slopes or bridge construction formerly used for highway
Keywords:
construction in this area, the cliff highway technique, which combines cantilevered slab roads along the
Cliff ecosystems
Environmental conservation
edge of the cliff with bridge support structures where additional support is required, reduces environ-
Cliff path mental damage and represents a good option for the conservation of fragile cliff ecosystems, while greatly
Cliff road reducing the construction cost. In such areas, the basic objectives of road construction must include bio-
diversity 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.
© 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction the fragmentation of these ecosystems caused by roads can sig-

nificantly alter the landscape structure within multiple vegetation
Cliff ecosystems are important for biodiversity protection types at a variety of ecological scales (Pauwels and Gulinck, 2000;
because these sites often support surprisingly ancient and diverse Sari et al., 2002; Cao et al., 2006).
communities, including rare plants and lichens, trees, birds, Chinese environmental problems are among the most severe
and small mammals (Krajick, 1999; Sergio et al., 2003). Human being faced by any major country, and show signs of worsening
actions—which include rock climbing (Krajick, 1999), communica- (Liu et al., 2003). Many Chinese, including the nation’s leaders, are
tion between regions via cliff roads (Sari et al., 2002; Jaarsma et al., aware of these problems and have tried to tackle them (Cao, 2008).
2006), and other human actions (Cao et al., 2006)—are eliminating For example, to protect its biodiversity, China has established 1757
species from these sites even as scientists discover them (Jodice et national and local nature reserves. The reserves cover about 13% of
al., 1999). the nation’s area, mostly in western China (Liu et al., 2003) and
As a result of the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau ca. 80,000 ka BP, a especially in and around Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, where
huge area of cliff landscapes formed in western China, especially in a huge area of cliff landscapes has formed (Shui and Chen, 2007;
and around Sichuan Province. This area includes some of the rich- Liu, 2008). These areas are also significant tourist destinations, and
est biodiversity and the most difficult travel conditions in the world draw millions of visitors daily (Morell, 2008). Environmental pro-
(Shui and Chen, 2007; Liu, 2008). As a result of China’s recent rapid tection is a significant challenge for national highway development
economic development and growth, an extensive road network is because more than two-thirds of the area affected by the devel-
being constructed in many regions (Xu et al., 2006). Unfortunately, opment of new roads lies in mountainous regions. Cliff landforms
the impacts of road construction can be most severe in mountain- are particularly common in Sichuan and Yongnan provinces, and in
ous regions, where ecosystems are particularly fragile and where large parts of southwestern China. Balancing environmental pro-
tection with the need for communication between areas is difficult
because of the huge population (approximately 200 million) who
live in western China and their need to improve communication
∗ Corresponding author at: College of Soil and Water Conservation, Beijing
with the rest of the country. To implement its sustainable develop-
Forestry University, No. 35, Qinhuadong Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100083, PR
China. Tel.: +86 10 6233 6097; fax: +86 10 6233 8689. ment strategy (Jiang, 2000), China’s Ministry of Communications
E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Cao). has proposed an environmentally friendly approach to protect the

0169-2046/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2009.10.007
 S. Cao et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 94 (2010) 228–233 229

environment during the construction of new highways (Peng et such roads were built in western China during the Qin dynasty,
al., 2007). To prevent the severe environmental damage caused which lasted from 221 to 206 bc (Shui and Chen, 2007). A section of
by conventional road construction in these areas, researchers (e.g., these cliff paths can still be discerned at the mouth of the Thatched
Justo et al., 2008) have highlighted the urgent need to develop envi- Cottage River, on the northern bank of the Yangtze River (Ronan,
ronmentally acceptable solutions that can be used when roads are 2003). Although this approach was originally devised to reduce
constructed in cliff areas. construction costs, it also improved environmental conservation
Road construction can create extensive surface disturbance, as a result of decreased disturbance of the original landscape. To
with correspondingly serious impacts on the surrounding environ- promote environmental protection, this ancient technique is now
ment, especially where the soil is highly susceptible to erosion, being resurrected for use in mountainous parts of China, with the
where the vegetation cover is poor, and where the ecosystem is planks replaced by modern construction materials (Appendix A).
fragile (Xu et al., 2006). In addition, the construction can have
significant impacts far from the construction site; for example, 2.2. Experimental design
traditional road construction requires large volumes of fill mate-
rials, particularly in mountainous areas, and the granular materials Our study was conducted in the Shennongjia tourist area
required for this purpose must often be obtained from borrow (110◦ 03 05 E to 110◦ 33 50 E, 31◦ 21 20 N to 31◦ 36 20 N) in west-
pits located outside the mountains. To reduce ecosystem dam- ern Hubei Province. The study area had a mean annual temperature
age in cliff areas, an ancient Chinese cliff path technique has of 15.9 ◦ C (ranging from −16.8 ◦ C in January to 43.1 ◦ C in August),
recently been resurrected. The same technique that is used for and average annual precipitation of 1155 mm. At the end of 2005,
canopies and balconies (Teng et al., 2001), namely cantilevering, China’s Ministry of Communications and the Communications
has been used to construct slab roads on the sides of cliffs. At some Office of Hubei Province decided to rebuild a road in the tourist
sites, the slab road is combined with bridge support structures area to demonstrate the potential of the new techniques for envi-
where additional support is needed. To understand the environ- ronmental protection, while widening the road from 6 to 8 m, with
mental benefits of this approach, we undertook a study to explore the additional goal of minimizing the visual impact of the roads.
the potential for protecting ecosystems during the construction The work sites included 53 km of class II paved road and ranged in
of roads through mountainous terrain by monitoring the con- elevation from 178 to 1168.9 m. We studied the construction opera-
struction of eight cliff road sites in the warm Shennongjia region tions at eight cliff sites. In contrast with the conventional technique,
of China’s Hubei Province—one of the country’s famous national which involved bridge construction and filling in of the slope below
nature reserves and tourist areas—from June 2006 to July 2009. the road, the new technique used either a cantilevered slab road
We studied the use of two variations of the cliff path technique, (Fig. 1) or a cantilevered slab road combined with bridge supports
with the following research question: Could the new technique pre- (Fig. 2). Four examples of each type of road were studied.
serve the functional characteristics of the landscape, protect the The cantilevered slab roads were constructed at sites with near-
cliff ecosystems around the roads, and decrease construction costs? vertical slopes, where the cliff face was composed of granite judged
To answer this question, we compared these aspects of the cliff road sufficiently solid to withstand both heavy vehicle traffic and natu-
technique with those of the traditional filling in of roadside slopes ral hazards such as earthquakes. At such sites, it would have been
or bridge construction that were formerly used for highway con- prohibitively difficult to use conventional construction techniques,
struction in this area. Because the construction sites were too steep which would have required destruction of the natural cliff face to
to permit intensive monitoring (our investigations were limited by create road cuts through the natural rock (Appendix B), or the cre-
the engineering manager because of safety concerns), we were not ation of long switchbacks to bring the road to a lower elevation
able to obtain much data on soil erosion; instead, we have used the where cut and fill construction would have been possible (Appendix
areas of the site that were disturbed and the impacts on the original C). This approach was supplemented with the use of bridge sup-
vegetation cover as proxies for the erosion risk. Our results showed ports where the slope beneath the road was sufficiently shallow to
that the new techniques can improve the protection of cliff ecosys- permit the installation and effective use of these structures.
tems while dramatically decreasing construction costs. Two other
important goals of this paper are to introduce these traditional 2.3. Field observations
techniques to Western readers and thereby help improve environ-
mental protection in mountainous terrain, and to draw attention To quantify the environmental disturbance created by the cliff
to the need for conservation of cliff ecosystems around the world. road technique, we monitored the total volume of soil and stone

2. Methods

2.1. Cliff paths in ancient China

A poem by Li Po, written 1200 years ago during the Tang

Dynasty, described the difficulty of communication between
regions in southwestern China: “Travelling into Sichuan is difficult,
even harder than climbing to the blue sky.” To improve commu-
nication between regions in mountainous areas with many cliffs,
engineers traditionally (as early as 300 bc) built cliff paths (Ronan,
2003) by cutting holes into the cliff face and driving wooden beams
into the holes. Planks were then laid on the beams to form a path,
2–3 m wide, for people to walk on. Canopies were built in some
places to protect travelers from falling rocks and other debris (Shui
and Chen, 2007; Liu, 2008). The bridge technique, in which addi-
tional support structures were installed below the path, was used Fig. 1. Photograph of a typical cliffside highway based on the use of a cantilevered
in other areas, particularly to cross gullies. More than 1000 km of slab road.
230 S. Cao et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 94 (2010) 228–233

site that would have been affected by the construction operation.

We then calculated the proportion of each site accounted for by this
disturbed area as a measure of the proportion of the original vege-
tation that would have been damaged. All engineering and cost data
on the construction of the cliff roads were obtained from the road
construction managers, with the material volumes confirmed using
the methods described above. To determine the costs of construct-
ing roads at the same locations using conventional techniques, we
combined the engineering data with the costs of the cheapest con-
ventional techniques that are used in similar projects. This data was
supplied by the Highway Design Institute of Hubei Province. We
used Microsoft Excel 2003 for all calculations and statistical anal-
ysis. We tested the statistical significance of differences between
the new and conventional techniques using the F-test (p < 0.05)
provided by Excel.

Fig. 2. Photograph of a typical cliffside highway that combines a cantilevered road 3. Results
with bridge supports.

that was removed or relocated during construction. To determine The results of our vegetation surveys (Table 1) reveal that the
the construction costs, we obtained data on the number of worker- new construction techniques can protect the vegetation along the
hours of labor and the total quantity of construction materials roads significantly better than conventional techniques. The area
consumed at each site every day during the road construction. This of damaged vegetation averaged 0.15 m2 (ranging from 0.14 to
data was provided by the construction managers from June 2006 to 0.16 m2 ) per meter of road length in the technique that combined a
July 2009. To eliminate errors in this data, we surveyed each con- cantilevered slab road with bridge supports, and 0.26 m2 (ranging
struction site once the road construction was complete using the from 0.05 to 0.41 m2 ) with the cantilevered slab road; these values
blueprints (design specifications) for the road. We then used the compare with 5.9 and 5.6 m2 , respectively, for conventional road
labor, equipment, and material costs provided by the construction construction at the two types of sites. For all eight plots combined,
managers to calculate the total costs of each section of road that we the area of damaged vegetation was 96.9% less (ranging from 71.7
monitored. to 98.6% less) than in the conventional technique. Despite the steep
To assess vegetation damage, we determined the canopy density slopes and high precipitation, we observed no significant signs of
at each site by means of line-intersect sampling before the road con- erosion during the study period, suggesting that the new approach
struction (in June 2006) and after the construction was complete may have additional environmental benefits compared with the
(in July 2009). In this approach, we measured the length of the conventional technique, which often leads to large amounts of ero-
transect line that intersected vegetation in 20-m transects (2–10 sion, particularly if slopes are not stabilized by revegetation or other
per construction site) running down the slope and below the road. techniques soon after road construction. Unfortunately, because of
We expressed damage to the vegetation as the proportion of the safety considerations, it was not possible to quantify erosion at the
original length of the transect covered by vegetation in June 2006 eight study sites.
that was no longer covered by vegetation in July 2009; to estimate The new techniques also decreased disturbance of the physi-
the area of vegetation damaged by the road construction, we then cal environment around the roads. The volume of original soil and
multiplied this proportion by the total area of the work site. stone shifted at each site averaged 0.3 m3 (ranging from 0.29 to
To estimate the vegetation damage that would have occurred if 0.32 m3 ) per meter of road length in the technique that combined
roads had been built using conventional approaches, we used data a cantilevered slab road with bridge supports and 0.55 m3 (rang-
provided by the Highway Design Institute to predict the area at each ing from 0.28 to 0.60 m3 ) in the technique with a cantilevered slab

Table 1
Vegetation conservation resulting from road construction using the two cliff highway techniques.

Plot no. Plot length (m) Vegetation damage (m2 ) Improvement (%)

New technique Conventional technique

Cantilevered slab road combined with bridge supports

K34 + 339 49.0 7.9 556 98.6
K35 + 025 204.0 29.4 1566 98.1
K35 + 167 59.0 9.1 32 71.7
K35 + 394 60.0 9.1 32 71.7

Average 93.0 13.9 546.5 97.5***

Cantilevered slab road

K32 + 385 14.0 4.6 36.6 87.5
K32 + 729 53.0 21.9 602.4 96.4
K32 + 325 35.0 1.8 33.8 94.6
K32 + 360 25.0 2.6 34.6 92.6

Average 31.8 8.3 177.4 95.3***

All sites combined 62.4 11.1 362.0 96.9***

Notes: Values for the conventional technique at the study sites were estimated using data provided by the Highway Design Institute, Hubei Province. Values for the new
techniques differ significantly from those in the conventional technique (F-test).
***
p < 0.0001.
 S. Cao et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 94 (2010) 228–233 231

Table 2
Volumes of soil and stone that must be shifted at each site during road construction using the two cliff highway techniques.

Plot no. Plot length (m) Volume of soil and stone shifted (m3 ) Improvement (%)

New techniques Conventional technique

Cantilevered slab road combined with bridge supports

K34 + 339 49.0 15.8 1455 98.9
K35 + 025 204.0 58.8 3458 98.3
K35 + 167 59.0 18.1 351 94.8
K35 + 394 60.0 18.1 64 71.7

Average 93.0 27.7 1332 97.9***

Cantilevered slab road

K32 + 385 14.0 8.4 126.0 93.3
K32 + 729 53.0 28.7 1551.7 98.1
K32 + 325 35.0 9.8 352.8 97.2
K32 + 360 25.0 9.8 254.8 96.2

Average 31.8 17.5 571.3 96.9***

All sites combined 62.4 21.3 951.7 97.8***

Notes: Values for the conventional technique at the study sites were estimated using data provided by the Highway Design Institute, Hubei Province. Values for the new
techniques differ significantly from those in the conventional technique (F-test).
***
p < 0.0001.

road (Table 2); these values compare with 14.3 and 18.0 m3 , respec- 85.6% for the cantilevered slab road technique. This cost compar-
tively, for conventional road construction at the two types of sites. ison becomes even more favorable if we remove the costs for the
For all eight sites combined, this amounted to 97.8% less distur- longest section of road (plot K35 + 025), where road construction
bance (ranging from 71.7 to 98.9% less) than in the conventional would have been less expensive using the conventional technique.
road construction technique. In addition, the conventional tech-
nique would have required importing 7614 m3 of soil and stone 4. Discussion
material from borrow pits at some distance from the construction
sites, leading to additional impacts elsewhere in the region. Transportation has multifaceted and often severe impacts on
A technique must be environmentally appropriate, but for a the environment (Jaarsma et al., 2006). As a result of China’s rapid
developing country such as China, it must also be economically economic development and growth, an extensive road network is
viable. Our results indicated that the new techniques can also sig- being constructed in many regions (Xu et al., 2006), and this con-
nificantly decrease the cost of road construction in cliff areas. The struction has the potential to create severe environmental impacts.
cost of road construction averaged 817 RMB (ranging from 701 to One particular concern in mountainous terrain is that sediments
937 RMB)/m of road length in the technique that combined a can- eroded from construction sites can be delivered into streams and
tilevered slab road with bridge supports and 199 RMB (ranging rivers (Lane and Sheridan, 2002). Compared with the conventional
from 179 to 283 RMB)/m in the cantilevered slab road technique construction technique, the new techniques described in this paper
(Table 3); these values compare with costs of 986 and 1381 RMB/m, disturb much less of the construction site and its vegetation, and
respectively, for conventional construction at the same sites. For all this should reduce the risks of erosion and of sedimentation of
eight sites combined, the cost reduction from using the new tech- streams and rivers near the construction site. Although we could
niques averaged 39.4%, with reductions of 17.4% for the technique not measure the actual quantity of erosion at our study sites, it
that combined a cantilevered slab road with bridge supports and nonetheless appears likely that the new techniques will improve
Table 3
Total construction costs for road construction using the two cliff highway techniques.

Plot no. Plot length (m) Cost (1000 RMB) Improvement (%)

New techniques Conventional technique

Cantilevered slab road combined with bridge supports

K34 + 339 49.0 39.0 50.9 23.4
K35 + 025 204.0 167.3 121.0 −38.3
K35 + 167 59.0 41.4 97.0 57.3
K35 + 394 60.0 56.2 99.0 43.2

Average 93.0 76.0 92.0 17.4

Cantilevered slab road

K32 + 385 14.0 4.0 23.1 82.9
K32 + 729 53.0 10.2 53.3 80.9
K32 + 325 35.0 6.3 57.8 89.1
K32 + 360 25.0 4.9 41.3 88.2

Average 31.8 6.3 43.9 85.6**

All sites combined 62.4 41.1 67.9 39.4

Notes: Values for the conventional technique at the study sites were estimated using data provided by the Highway Design Institute, Hubei Province. Values for the new
techniques differ significantly from those in the conventional technique (F-test). To withstand both heavy vehicle traffic and natural hazards such as earthquakes, the longest
section of road (plot K35 + 025) met more demanding design criteria and the cost was increased by the more demanding physiognomy and landscape conditions (Appendix
C).
**
p < 0.01.
232 S. Cao et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 94 (2010) 228–233

soil conservation and environmental protection by reducing the (Froment and Domon, 2006). The Chinese cliffside road construc-
vulnerability of the sites to erosion. tion practices described in this paper demonstrate that improving
To effectively control erosion on roadside slopes and reduce its the technology used in road construction can reduce both con-
adverse ecological impacts, the focus in conventional road con- struction costs and environmental damage, thereby balancing the
struction has mostly been on stabilizing slopes to improve road need to improve communication between regions with the need
safety and on the engineering aspects of side-slope design (Yang et for ecological conservation. This is particularly important for cliff
al., 2000; Luo, 2002), and less attention has been paid to the eco- ecosystems, which are more fragile than other ecosystems.
logical aspects of road design. Disturbance and edge effects mainly In China, many roads must be capable of supporting the heavy
result from damage caused by infrastructure construction and use. loads imposed by large trucks transporting materials from one end
Physical disturbance appears during construction activities, when of the country to the other. The use of cantilevered roads, where
soils and the landscape relief are modified most severely, thereby the rock face adds support for the road, and the addition of bridge
altering the vegetation even at relatively long distances from the supports where roads engineers judge this to be necessary, will
road (Jaarsma et al., 2006). Therefore, the fact that the new con- increase the capacity of roads constructed using the techniques
struction techniques produced less physical disturbance suggests described in this paper. Although the present study suggests that
that both will improve environmental protection. In addition, the the roads will perform as well as conventional roads when they
new techniques reduced damage to the original vegetation, thereby are designed to withstand both heavy vehicle traffic and natu-
greatly reducing the visual impact of the road construction. Grow- ral hazards such as earthquakes, travel speeds and gross vehicle
ing interest in biodiversity conservation during road construction weights should be limited as is done for travel on conventional
(Bischoff, 1995) will no doubt make the new techniques increas- bridges. Because slab-on-girder bridges play an important role in
ingly attractive to road builders. Although we did not quantify the highway transportation systems, these designs have raised con-
visual impact of the road construction, and although roads them- siderable interest in studies of bridge–vehicle interactions (Green
selves are not inherently attractive, the visual impact is strongly and Cebon, 1994; Kim and Nowak, 1997; Caia et al., 2007). It is
affected by changes in the vegetation cover at the construction site likely that most of this research can be applied to the design of cliff
and by signs of damage to natural structures such as the cliff face. roads, but these roads will have unique design needs that can only
Since much less vegetation was affected by the new techniques and be identified through additional research. In particular, researchers
the proportion of the site disturbed by construction activities was will need to carefully consider the predicted traffic on these roads,
also much lower, the new techniques should also have lower per- in terms of both the number of vehicles and their weights, to deter-
ceived visual impacts than conventional construction techniques. mine whether restrictions on vehicle traffic will be required, or
The cliff areas in the present study are generally located far from whether engineering solutions can be found; for example, some
large cities, though there is a certain degree of human occupation slopes incapable of supporting heavy vehicles may require alterna-
of nearby areas, thus they are endowed with unique abiotic, biotic, tive approaches such as the construction of tunnels. In addition, the
esthetic, and cultural attributes that may have been lost in urban- earthquake risk must be considered when cliff roads are designed
ized areas. However, even when the species at the study sites can be because many of the cliff areas that would otherwise be suitable for
found elsewhere in the region, the landscape mosaics they repre- the use of cliff roads are located in regions with a high earthquake
sent may differ from those of areas with similar species elsewhere frequency; for example, the Wenchuan earthquake that occurred
in the region, and this difference has important implications for in a cliff area in Sichuan Province in May 2008 destroyed all con-
conservation management and the configuration of habitat patches ventional roads in the area. It will therefore be necessary to study
(Jodice et al., 1999; Sergio et al., 2003). Therefore, if the use of the capacity of cliff roads to resist earthquake damage.
cliff roads such as those described in the present study can help
to protect both rare species and unique landscape mosaics, it will
Acknowledgements
offer many advantages in terms of environmental protection. In
tourist areas, conservation of the region’s natural and cultural her-
This work was supported by the Science and Technology Pro-
itage may even contribute to the development of ecotourism. The
gram of Ministry of Communications of China (20083180086). We
views from cliff roads are spectacular, and the experience of driv-
thank Geoffrey Hart of Canada for his help in writing this paper.
ing (or being driven) along them has considerable tourism value.
We also thank the Highway Device Institute of Hubei Province for
There will therefore be a growing number of cliff roads in the world
their support during the road design projects. We are also grateful
where the spectacular view is a major draw for tourists. In such
for the comments and criticisms of an anonymous reviewer.
areas, the basic objectives of road construction must include pro-
tection of biodiversity, careful control of the construction process
and subsequent cleanup of the site, and sustainability of the natural Appendix A.
resources in the construction area (Boclin and Mello, 2006). These
goals must be complemented by the need for cultural conservation
and tourism development.
The choice of construction technique at a given site typically
depends on the construction cost, ease of construction, and design
goals for the road. For example, the cost should be not exceed the
investor’s ability to pay, the techniques must be feasible based on
the physiognomy and landscape, and the design criteria must allow
the road to withstand both heavy vehicle traffic and natural hazards
such as earthquakes. These considerations may lead planners to
add bridge supports to a cantilever road or to choose conventional
road construction instead of the cantilever technique. However,
improvements to highway infrastructure have both systemic and
local impacts that must be accounted for in future road designs
(Kanaroglou et al., 1998). Elements of the natural setting have
esthetic qualities that are clearly appreciated by users of the roads Photograph of a typical cliff path in a modern Chinese park.
 S. Cao et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 94 (2010) 228–233 233

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