From Local Connectivity to Corridor Pressure: Road Access-Point Development Along Mountain Highways in Nepal

Abstract

Road access-point development along highways is an important corridor-management concern in urbanizing mountain regions, where unmanaged access connections can pressure sustainable corridor performance. However, evidence on spatial distribution, emergence, and concentration of access points remains limited in data-scarce mountain highway contexts. This study applies a spatially explicit GIS-based workflow to examine access-point development along selected national highway corridors in Nepal. An imagery-derived, field-informed inventory of observable road access points spanning 2010–2025 was constructed from multi-temporal imagery and standardized within 1 km road bins using corridor-specific baselines, and linked with GIS-derived indicators of terrain, built-up condition, land cover, and node proximity. Negative binomial models examined baseline concentration and interval-based emergence; a bin-level logistic model assessed high-emergence bins. The inventory recorded 1246 access points, including 745 post-baseline additions and 62 high-emergence road bins. Lower mean slope was associated with both baseline concentration and emergence, but other associations differed: baseline concentration corresponded more closely to built-up share and node proximity, whereas emergence corresponded more closely to agricultural/open land share. These results indicate that inherited access concentration and subsequent emergence on highways represent related but distinct corridor-management challenges. The study supports sustainable corridor management through access monitoring and priority screening in data-limited mountain highway environments.