Sprawling roads enhanced tropical forest loss during the period 2001–2020

Sprawling road networks cutting through forested areas continue to be a potent catalyst of deforestation in tropical regions. Yet, pantropical assessments limited by the lack of high-resolution global maps of tropical forest loss induced by road networks. Here, we harnessed the road dataset from the Global Roads Inventory Project and the forest loss dataset from Global Forest Change, to produce global tropical high-resolution maps of road impact index spanning 2001 to 2020. We find that the forest area within a 1-km distance from roads accounts for about one-sixth, but its proportion of forest loss is nearly one-third, the road impact index is 2.45 times higher than those beyond the zone. The road impact index of all countries shows a decreasing trend with the distance from roads and increasing from 2001 to 2020. Our findings emphasize the urgent need for globalized efforts to protect the intact forests and rehabilitate degraded forests along roadside. Nearly 30% of forest loss in tropical regions between 2001 and 2020 occurred within 1 km from roads, with a road impact index in these areas about 2.5 times higher than those beyond, according to a high-resolution road impact index developed from remote sensing data.