Preliminary impact assessment of the new transport infrastructure project on Trans-Baikal Territory geosystems, Russia

Transbaikalia is in the interest area of the largest foreign policy initiative of China – the project “Silk Road Economic Belt”. The creation of the infrastructure linking member states (China, Russia, Mongolia) is one of the priority directions of this cooperation. First of all, the possibility of constructing a high-speed railway (HSR) is discussed. It is known that HSRs exert an overall positive effect on the development of regional economies, especially on such brunches as tourism and regional cooperation. However this initiative carries risks for the natural ecosystems of the region such as: land take, biodiversity loss, degradation and fragmentation of habitats, increasing pollution, barrier effects, noise, land use impacts. This paper is focusing on the potential impacts of under project on the geosystems. The spatial analysis results show that the project is likely to endanger 43 out of 122 natural geosystems located on the Trans-Baikal Territory. Along them there are 5 types of rare landscapes and 6 landscape types which are not presented in region NPAs network. According to the proposed route version, it won’t cross any border of any nature reserve. To mitigate and compensate the negative impact of the new transport facility on the region geosystems the measures are suggested.