Vol.

11

No. 3

J. CENT. SOUTH UNIV. T E C H N O L .

Sep. 2004

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

Comprehensive assessment method for environmental impact

of railway based on geographic information system
WU Xiao-ping(z~:/Jx~)l'2, CHEN X i u - f a n g ( ] ~ 9 ~ ' ) ~, MA C h a o - q u 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 Architecture, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China;
2. Mobile Postdoctoral Study and Research Station, School of Industry and Business Management,
Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China)
Abstract: By integrating the merits of the map overlay method and the geographic information system ( G I S ) , a
GIS based map overlay method was developed to analyze comprehensively the environmental vulnerability around
railway and its impact on the environment, which is adapted for the comprehensive assessment of railway environmental impact and the optimization of railway alignments. The assessment process of the GIS based map overlay
method was presented, which includes deciding the system structure and weights of assessment factors, making environmental vulnerability grade maps, and evaluating the alternative alignments comprehensively to obtain the best
one. With the GIS functions of spatial analysis, such as overlay analysis and buffer analysis, and functions of handling attribute data, the GIS based map overlay method overcomes the shortcomings of the existing map overlay
method and the conclusion is more reasonable. In the end, a detailed case study was illustrated to verify the efficiency of the method.

Key words: railway planning; environmental impact assessment; geographic information system; graph overlay
method

CLC number: X820. 3

INTRODUCTION

With the development of Chinese economy,

the railway increases so rapidly but breaks the natural environment and ecology balance, and brought
about much pollution and harm to life. The sustainable strategy put forward at the Environment
and Development Conference of the United Nations
in June, 1992 aimed at promoting the mutual correspondence of environment and development. Environmental 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 impact assessment, the map overlay method by
McHarg E93 is adapted for the comprehensive assessment of railway environment impact. The map
overlay method essentially assesses the impact on
the issue of the surrounding of railway. In this paper a geographic information system (GIS) based

Document code: A

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 alterative alignments selection, based on the assessment
results of each factorE1'113.
Railway environmental impact assessment involves many factors. Therefore 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 database information and geographical locations within the location reference system. Most information
about environmental management and environmental 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: Project(2002F008; 2003F012) supported by the Science and Technology Research and Development Planning Projects of

the Ministry of Railway of China

Received date: 2003 - 08 - 07 ; Accepted date: 2003 - 12 - 24
Correspondence:WU Xiao-ping, PhD; Tel: +86-731-2655611 ; E-mail:xpwu(~mail. csu. edu. cn

W U Xiatrping, et al: Comprehensive assessment method for environmental impact oI railway based on GIS

such as sound and movie, to show and further analyze environmental informationc13'143.

polygonal value of vulnerability grade Vi is expressed by

Vi-~-

GIS BASED MAP OVERLAY METHOD

2.1

Basic principle
Firstly, divide the railway-passed district into
several units and sets up the database with the environmental information reflecting the impact on
ecology, noise, 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
(usually called composite map), then design several 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 overlay method
2. 2. 1 Selecting assessment factors and estimating weights of assessment factors
Assessment factors are determined by different railways. It is essential that a certain factor
should be assessed in detail if it has longtime, obvious, unrecoverable or accumulative impact on environment, or can be neglected if it has small or no
impact. In specific environmental impact assessment, factors should be selected first and the system 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 H P ) digitizes the decision-maker's thoughts and makes some brief comparison, judgment and calculation among the factors to obtain their weights. In case of many assessment 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 vulnerability grade is determined by its own attribution. In this paper, the vulnerability grade is divided 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 vulnerability 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 overlaid environmental vulnerability grade map, the ith

341

XZdliiaj

(1)

j=t

where m is the number of factors whose vulnerability grade map is overlaid, ai is the weight of the
j t h assessment factor and l 0 is the vulnerability
grade of j t h factor in ith polygon, usually, l 0 ----1,
2, 3, 4, 5. The ith ~olygonal attribute of vulnerability grade L~ is ex ,ressed as follows:
"1,

ViE

2,

V,E El,2)
VIE[-2,3)

Li = , 3 ,
4,

[-0,1)

(2)

v,E r3,4)
V,E [4,5)

5,
V~ and L~ are stored in GIS attribute database,
and the vulnerability grade of the composite map
can be visualized by various colors.
2.2.4 Determining optimal corridor of least environmental vulnerability
The optimal corridor of least environmental
vulnerability is composed of polygons having small
grade attribute value. Railway alignments have
least environmental impact while they pass the corridor.
2.2.5 Designing railway alignments
In the optimal corridor of the least environmental vulnerability, several alignments can be designed, 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:
n

Ek = ~_aAkj Vki

(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 j t h polygon within the environmental impact
extension of the kth alignment in the overlaid map,
Vk~ is the grade attribute value of the j t h 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 environmental impact assessment and the optimal
alignment was selected out according to the results. All of these were completed with a GIS software: MapInfo. The topographic and alignments
map is shown in Fig. 1.
The assessment factors and their weights are
listed in Table 1. The assessment results are listed
in Tables 2 and 3. The overlaid map of railway

 342

,Journal CSUT

alignments and environmental vulnerability grade

is s h o w n in Fig. 2.

Vol.11 No. 3 2004

v i d e s a n e w w a y to a s s e s s t h 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 of
railway construction and environment protection.

REFERENCES
[1]

Fig. 1

Topographic and railway alignments map

[-2]

:2!

[31

Fig. 2

O v e r l a i d m a p of r a i l w a y a l i g n m e n t s and
environmental vulnerability grade

Table 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 of
geographic map

Factor

Air

N o i s e Ecology

Weight

0.22

0. 28

Table 2

0.20

~5]

Landscape
0. 30

[6]

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

Name of polygons

Vi

Area/mz

School
:

4.28
:

3 927.16
:

Orchard

2.28

517.23

Table 3

[-7]

[8]

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

Name of polygons

Vi

Area/mz

Kale yard

1.80

3 251.15

[-9]

Orchard

1.80

527.23

[10]

A c c o r d i n g to T a b l e s 2 a n d 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 t e d . T h e a s s e s s m e n t v a l u e s of
each 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 385 4 2 4 . 1 8
m z , 493 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
one w h o s e i m p a c t on e n v i r o n m e n t is t h e less.
4

[4]

CONCLUSIONS

1) W i t h t h e G I S f u n c t i o n s of s p a t i a l a n a l y s i s ,
s u c h as 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 of 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
map overlay method overcomes the shortcomings
of 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 so m a n y r a i l w a y e n v i r o n m e n t a l impact assessment methods, the GIS based map overlay m e t h o d is one of t h e m o s t effective m e t h o d s . It
can e f f i c i e n t l y select 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 on e n v i r o n m e n t .
3) A s a r e a s 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
method, the GIS based map overlay method pro-

[-11]

El2]

[13]

[141

[151

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