Wu - 2004 - Comprehensive Assesment Method for Environmental Impact of Railway Based on Geographic Information System

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Vol. 11 No. 3 J. CEN T. SOU TH UNIV . TE CH NO L. Sep. 2004

A~icle ID: 1005 - 9784(2004)03 - 0340 - 03

o m p r e h e n s i v e a s s e s s m e n t m e t h o d f o r e n v i r o n m e n t a l i m p a c t

o f r a i l w a y b a s e d o n g e o g r a p h i c i n f o r m a t i o n s y s t e m ®

WU Xiao-ping(z~:/Jx~)l 2, CHEN Xi u- fa ng( ]~9 ~ ) ~ MA Ch ao - qu n( -~ l ~)z

YANG Xiao-yu(J/~l~-~-) ~ RAN Mao-ping(i~l-~j~-) 1 MENG Xiang- ding (~[~ [~ ) 2

(1. School of Civil Engineering and Archi tecture, Central South Univers ity , Changsha 410075, China;

2. Mobile Postdoctoral Study and Research Station, School of Industry and Business Management,

Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China)

A bst ract :

B y i n t e g r a t in g t h e m e r i t s o f t h e m a p o v e r l a y m e t h o d a n d t h e g e o g r a p h i c i n f o r m a t io n s y s t e m G I S ) , a

G I S b a s ed m a p o v e r l a y m e t h o d w a s d e v e l o p e d t o a n a l y z e c o m p r e h e n s i v e l y t h e e n v i r o n m e n t a l v u l n e r a b i l i t y a ro u n d

r a i lw a y a n d i ts i m p a c t o n t h e e n v i r o n m e n t , w h i c h i s a d a p te d f o r t h e c o m p r e h e n s i v e a s s e s s m e n t o f r a i l w a y e n v i r o n -

m e n t a l im p a c t an d t h e o p t i m i z a t io n o f r a i l w a y al i g n m e n t s . T h e a s s e s s m e n t p r o c e s s o f th e G I S b a s e d m a p o v e r l a y

m e t h o d w a s p r e s e n t e d , w h i c h i n c lu d e s d e ci d i n g t h e s y s t e m s t r u c t u r e a n d w e i g h t s o f a ss e s s m e n t f a c t o r s , m a k i n g e n -

v i r o n m e n t a l v u l n e r a b i li t y g r a d e m a p s , a n d e v a l u a t i n g t h e a l t e r n a t i v e a l ig n m e n t s c o m p r e h e n s i v e l y t o o b t a i n t h e b e s t

o n e . W i t h t h e G I S f u n c t i o n s o f s p a t i a l a n a l y s i s , s u c h a s o v e r l a y a n a l y s i s a n d b u f f e r a n a l y s i s , a n d f u n c t i o n s o f h a n -

d l i ng at t r i b u t e d a t a , t h e G I S b a s e d m a p o v e r l a y m e t h o d o v e r c o m e s t h e s h o r t c o m i n g s o f t h e e x i s t i n g m a p o v e r l a y

m e t h o d a n d t h e c o n c l u s i o n i s m o r e r e a s o n a b l e . I n t h e e n d , a d e t a i l e d c a se s t u d y w a s i l l u s t r a t e d t o v e r i f y t h e e f f i c ie n -

c y o f t h e m e t h o d .

K e y w o r d s :

r a i lw a y p l a n n i n g ; e n v i r o n m e n t a l i m p a c t a s s e s s m e n t ; g e o g r a p h i c in f o r m a t i o n s y s t e m ; g r a p h o v e r l a y

m e t h o d

C L C n u m b e r : X 8 20 3 D o c u m e n t c o d e : A

1 I N T R O D U C T I O N

With the development of Chinese economy,

the railway increases so rapidly but breaks the nat-

ural environment and ecology balance, and brought

about much pollution and harm to life. The sus-

tainable strategy put forward at the Environment

and Development Conference of the United Nations

in June, 1992 aimed at promot ing the mutual cor-

respondence of environment and development. En-

vironmental impact assessment must be carried out

on railway construction and operation to promote

the sustainable development of the economy and

environmentc1-s3 .

Among many methods of environmental im-

pact assessment, the map overlay method by

McHargE93is adapted for the comprehensive assess-

ment of railway environment impact. The map

overlay method essentially assesses the impact on

the issue of the surrounding of railway. In this pa-

per a geographic information system (GI S) based

map overlay method for comprehensive assessment

of railway environmental impact, which integrates

the merits of the map overlay method and GIS was

developed and used in railway planning and altera-

tive alignments selection, based on the assessment

results of each factorE1° 113.

Railway environmental impact assessment in-

volves many factors. There fore the application of

the GIS based map overlay method has to handle

lots of map data and attribute data, which GIS

software is good at C1z3.

GIS defines the relations between various da-

tabase information and geographical locations with-

in the location reference system. Most info rmation

about environmental management and environmen-

tal impact assessment are relative to geographical

locations and can be stored in the GIS database.

With its powerful function of handling maps and

attribute data, GIS can manage vector maps, grid

images, text attribute data and multimedia data,

®

Foundation item

Projec t 2002 F008 ; 2003F012) supported by the Science and Technology Research and Development Planning Projec ts of

the M inis try of Railway of China

Received date

200 3 - 08 - 07 ;

Accepted date

2003 - 12 - 24

C or r e s p ond e n c e W U Xiao-ping, P hD ; T el: +86-731-2655611 ; E-m ail :xpwu ~m ail . csu. edu. cn


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W U X i a t r p i n g , e t a l : C o m p r e h e n s i v e a s s e s s m e n t m e t h o d f o r e n v i r o n m e n t a l i m p a c t o I r a i l w a y b a s e d o n G I S • 3 4 1 •

such as sound and movie, to show and further ana-

lyze environmental informationc13 143.

2 G I S B A S E D M A P O V E R L A Y M E T H O D

2 1 B a s i c p r i n c i p le

Firstly, divide the railway-passed district into

several units and sets up the database with the en-

vironmental information reflecting the impact on

ecology, noi se, air and so on. Secondly, make the

environmental vulnerability grade maps for each

environmental assessment factor and overlay them

with the geographic map of the study area by using

buffer analysis and overlay analysis to obtain the

overlaid environmental vulnerability grade map

(usu ally called composite map ), then design sever-

al railway alignments on the map and carry out the

comprehensive environmental impact assessment.

Finally, according to the assessment result, the

optimal alignment whose impact on environment is

the least could be selected out[ 5 163.

2.2 Process of GIS based map

ove r lay me thod

2. 2. 1 Selecting assessment factors and estima-

ting weights of assessment factors

Assessment factors are determined by differ-

ent railways. It is essential that a certain factor

should be assessed in detail if it has longtime, ob-

vious, unrecoverable or accumulative impact on en-

vironment, or can be neglected if it has small or no

impact. In specific environmental impact assess-

ment, factors should be selected first and the sys-

tem structure of factors should be determined.

Since many factors are involved in a practical

railway environmental assessment, it is difficult to

define the weights of all factors simultaneously.

Analysis hierarchy process (A HP ) digitizes the de-

cision-maker s thoughts and makes some brief com-

parison, judgment and calculation among the fac-

tors to obtain their weights. In case of many as-

sessment factors, it is more accurate to estimate

the weights by this method.

2.2 .2 Making vulnerability grade map

For each assessment factor, the criterion vul-

nerability grade is determined by its own attribu-

tion. In this paper, the vulnerabili ty grade is divid-

ed into 5 levels, with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 respectively

standing for lower, low, middle, upper and high.

According to its grade, the vulnerability grade map

for each assessment factor can be made and stored

in the GIS map database.

2. 2.3 Overlaying vulnerabil ity grade map of each

assessment factor to obtain composite one

The environmental vulnerability grade map for

each factor in the studied area is overlaid to obtain

the overlaid vulnerability grade map, in the over-

laid environmental vulnerability grade map, the it h

polygonal value of vulnerability grade Vi is ex-

pressed by

Vi ~ XZdli ia j

(1)

j=t

where m is the number of factors whose vulnerabil-

ity grade map is overlaid, ai is the weight of the

jt h assessment factor and l 0 is the vulnerability

grade of jt h factor in i th polygon, usual ly, l 0 ----1,

2, 3, 4, 5. The ith ~olygonal attr ibute of vulnera-

bility grade L~ is ex ,ressed as follows:

1 , V i E [ - 0 , 1 )

2, V,E El,2)

L i = 3 VIE[-2,3) (2)

4, v, E r3,4

5

V,E [4,5

V~ and L~ are stored in GIS at tribute databas e,

and the vulnerability grade of the composite map

can be visualized by various colors.

2. 2. 4 Determining optimal corridor of least envi-

ronmental vulnerability

The optimal corridor of least environmental

vulnerability is composed of polygons having small

grade attr ibute value. Railway alignment s have

least environmental impact while they pass the cor-

ridor.

2.2 .5 Designing railway alignments

In the optimal corridor of the least environ-

mental vulnerability, several alignments can be de-

signed, all of which are not only economical, but

also feasible in technology. The optimal corridor is

useful in the design of railway alignments.

2.2 .6 Selecting optimal railway alignments

Assessment value E~ of each railway alignment

can be calculated by the following formula:

Ek = ~_ a Akj Vk i (3)

j = l

where E, is the environmental assessment value of

the kth alignment, n is the number of polygons

within the environmental impact extension of the

kth alignment in the overlaid map, Aki is the area

of the jt h polygon within the environmental impact

extension of the kth alignment in the overlaid map,

Vk~ is the grade attribute value of the jth polygon

within the environmental impact extension of the

kth alignment in the overlaid map.

3 CASE STUDY

In this section, a part of the railway alignment

from Yichang to Wanzhou was used to make envi-

ronmental impact assessment and the optimal

alignment was selected out according to the re-

sults. All of these were completed with a GIS soft-

ware: MapInfo. The topographic and alignment s

map is shown in Fig. 1.

The assessment factors and their weights are

listed in Table 1. The assess ment results are listed

in Tables 2 and 3. The overlaid map of railway


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• 342 •

Journal CSUT

V o l .11 No. 3 2004

a l i g n m e n t s a n d e n v i r o n m e n t a l v u l n e r a b i l i ty g r ad e

i s s h o w n i n F i g . 2 .

F i g. 1 T o p o g r a p h i c an d r a i l w a y a l i g n m e n t s m a p

:2

F i g . 2 O v e r l a i d m a p o f r a i l w a y a l i g n m e n t s a n d

e n v i r o n m e n t a l v u l n e r a b i l i ty g r a d e

T a b l e 1 E n v i r o n m e n t a l a t t r i b u t e d a t a o f

g e o g r a p h i c m a p

F a c to r A i r N o i s e E c ol og y L a n d s c a p e

Weight 0.22 0. 28 0.20 0. 30

T a b l e 2 R e s u l t s of a t t r i b u t e d a t a o f a l i g n m e n t 1

Name of polygons Vi Area/m z

School 4.28 3 927.16

•

: :

Orchard 2.28 517.23

T a b l e 3 R e s u l t s o f a t t r i b u t e d a t a o f a l i g n m e n t 2

Name of polygons

Vi

A r e a / mz

Kale yard 1.80 3 251.15

Orchard 1.80 527.23

A c c o r d i n g to T a b l e s 2 a nd 3 , t h e a s s e s s m e n t

v a l u e w a s c a l c u l a te d . T h e a s s e s s m e n t v a l u e s of

e a c h a l i g n m e n t s 1 a n d 2 a r e r e s p e c t i v e l y 3 85 4 2 4 . 1 8

m z , 4 9 3 6 2 1 . 1 7 m z , h e n c e , a l i g n m e n t 1 is a b e t t e r

o n e w h o s e i m p a c t o n e n v i r o n m e n t i s t h e l e ss .

4 C O N C L U S I O N S

1 ) W i t h t h e G I S f u n c t i o n s o f s p a t ia l a n a l y s i s ,

s u c h a s o v e r l a y a n a l y s i s a n d b u f f e r a n a l y s i s , a n d

f u n c t i o n s o f h a n d l i n g a t t r i b u t e d a t a , t h e G I S b a s e d

m a p o v e r l a y m e t h o d o v e r c o m e s t h e s h o r t c o m i n g s

o f t h e e x i s t i n g m a p o v e r l a y m e t h o d .

2 ) A m o n g s o m a n y r a i l w a y e n v i r o n m e n t a l i m -

p a c t a s s e s s m e n t m e t h o d s , t h e G I S b a s e d m a p o v e r-

l a y m e t h o d i s o n e o f t h e m o s t e f f e c t i v e m e t h o d s . I t

c a n e f f i c i e n t ly s e l e c t o u t t h e b e s t a l i g n m e n t w h i c h

h a s t h e l e a s t i m p a c t o n e n v i r o n m e n t .

3 ) A s a r e as o n a b l e c o m p r e h e n s i v e a s s e s s m e n t

m e t h o d , t h e G I S b a s e d m a p o v e r l a y m e t h o d p r o -

v i d e s a n e w w a y t o a s s e s s th e r a i l w a y e n v i r o n m e n t

i m p a c t a n d p r o m o t e s t h e m u t u a l c o r r e s p o n d e n c e o f

r a i l w a y c o n s t r u c t io n a n d e n v i r o n m e n t p r o t e c t i o n .

R E F E R E N C E S

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[ 3 1 W U X i a o - p in g . R e s e a r c h o n P l a n n i n g a n d E v a l u a t i n g

M e t h o d f o r T r a c k T r a f f i c u n d e r C h i n a ' s S u s t a i n a b l e

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a n d A r c h i t e c t u r a l E n g i n e e r i n g , C e n t r a l S o u t h U n i v e r -

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Be i j ing : Ch ina Ra i lw ay Pub l i sh ing Ho use , 1998. 26 -

63 . ( in Chinese )

[ 6 ] M a r i a n o B . T r a n s p o r t a n d t h e e n v i r o n m e n t : ca n t e c h -

n o l o g y p r o v i d e t h e a n s w e r s ? [ J ] . E n e r g y P o l i c y ,

1996, 24 (8) : 685 - 687.

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t h e D e s i g n o f R a i l w a y A l i g n m e n t S e l e c ti o n [ M ] . B e i -

j i n g : C h i n a R a i l w a y P u b l i s h i n g H o u s e , 1 9 98 . 5 6 -

88 . ( in Chinese )

[ 8 ] W U X i a o - p in g , W U J a n , S U N R u i - y i , e t a l. M u l ti p l e -

o b j e c t i v e d e c i s i o n - m a k i n g s y s t e m a n d a p p l i c a t i o n s

s t u d y f o r r a i l w a y l i n e s c h e m e s [ J ] . C h i n e s e R a i l w a y ,

2 0 0 1 , 5 ( 1 ) : 2 4 - 2 6 . ( i n C h i n e s e )

[ -9 ] M c H a r g I. D e s i g n W i t h N a t u r e l- M 1. N e w Y o r k : N a -

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[ 1 0 ] L e o p o l d L B , C l a r k e F E , H a n s a w B B , e t a l . A p r o -

c e d u r e f o r e v a l u a t i n g e n v i r o n m e n t a l i m p a c t [ J ] . G e o -

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l - J ] . P r o c e e d i n g s o f t h e I n s t i t u t i o n o f C i v i l E n g i -

n e e r s : T r a n s p o r t , 2 0 02 , 1 5 3 ( 1 ) : 4 3 - 5 2 .

E l2 ] Sa lah S , Mounia B , I sam K. GIS p la t fo rm fo r mul t i c r i t e -

r ia evaluat ion of route al ignm ents EJ]. Journal of Trans-

por ta t ion Eng ineer ing , 1999, 125 (2) : 14 4- 151.

[ 1 3 ] A n n o n i A , S m i t s P . M a i n p r o b l e m s i n b u i l d i n g E u r o -

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ron Sei Hea l A , 2003 ,38 (8 ) : 1 669 - 1 679 .

[ 1 51 L I X i u - g a n g , W A N G W e i , L I F a n g , e t a l. G I S b a s ed

m a p o v e r l a y m e t h o d f o r c o m p r e h e n s i v e a s s e s s m e n t o f

r o a d e n v i r o n m e n t a l i m p a c t F J ] . T r a n s p o r t a n d E n v i -

r o n m e n t , 1 9 9 9 , 4 ( 3 ) : 1 4 7 - 1 5 8 .

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Wu - 2004 - Comprehensive Assesment Method for Environmental Impact of Railway Based on Geographic Information System