Potential ecological risk assessment of proposed transportation infrastructure on the qinghai-tibet plateau
Rapid expansion of transportation infrastructure threatens ecosystems, making forward-looking ecological risk assessment essential for sustainable development. However, quantitative methods tailored to proposed transportation infrastructure (PTI), particularly those that capture indirect and cumulative effects, remain underdeveloped. Accordingly, based on the IPCC risk definition and principles of sustainable transportation, we develop a spatially explicit ecological risk assessment framework for PTI that integrates a nested multi-model coupling approach. We apply it to Shigatse on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to evaluate potential ecological risks of PTI under alternative 2035 development scenarios. The results indicate that higher risks are concentrated around the Shigatse urban periphery and in the middle reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo River. By 2035, ecological risk increases by 1.95%, 2.16%, and 2.29% under the railwayonly, highway-only, and combined scenarios, respectively. Risk zones expand outward along planned transport corridors and major urban nodes, and they attenuate rapidly with increasing distance from the infrastructure.