Scientists warn against China's plan to flatten over 700 mountains

Environmental consequences of removing hills to create more land for cities not considered, academics say in Nature paper

Stuart Clark

Scientists have criticised China's bulldozing of hundreds of mountains to provide more building land for cities. 

In a paper published in journal Nature this week, three Chinese academics say plan to remove over 700 mountains and shovel debris into valleys to create 250 sq km of flat land has not been sufficiently considered “environmentally, technically or economically.”

Li Peiyue, Qian Hui and Wu Jianhua, all from the School of Environmental Science and Engineering at Chang’an University, China, write: “There has been too little modelling of the costs and benefits of land creation. Inexperience and technical problems delay projects and add costs, and the environment impacts are not being thoroughly considered.”

One of the largest projects began in April 2012 in Yan'an in the Shaanxi province, where the aim was to double the city's area by creating an additional 78.5 sq km of land.

Local officials expect the project to generate billions of yuan from the sale or lease of the new land and spare agriculture land elsewhere in the country, which otherwise may have been used for development. 

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