4. Interaction with other sectors

There are a number of references in the above text to the direct interactions that exist with the road traffic sector.

There are also close relationships with projects in the field of rural, village and urban development, particularly with regard to the developmental effects that follow on from road building.

The benefit to road users conflicts with the interests of those using the land occupied by the road and its close and more distant environs.

There may in particular be conflicts for agricultural or forestry reasons.

Questions to be considered in this case are not simply the actual land occupied but also the functional disruption that road-building causes to existing, and in some cases sensitive, systems (e.g. the disruption caused by the road crossing irrigated rice-growing land, the heavier felling of commercial timber now that transport is easier, the erosion caused by different farming methods adopted for new crops made more attractive by transport, and the greater mobility and production levels encouraged by easier access to markets).

Impacts encouraging the growth of trade and industry which would not have occurred without the new road are generated in the same way (better locational advantages give rise to extra production).

Finally, there are often reciprocal impacts which a road-building project generates with respect to other impending infrastructural projects (e.g. where the building of an earth dam in a remote region cannot go ahead until access facilities exist; the commercial activity triggered by the building of a road will create a need for the disposal of waste water and solid waste; the use of fertilizer as a result of a recently built road will create stress on the environment that did not exist previously).