A global study finds rural settlement growth causes 3.5 times more biodiversity loss than cities.
Low-density expansion fragments natural habitats more widely than urban development.
Rural growth has spread faster into Key Biodiversity Areas than urban expansion.
Asia accounts for more than half of settlement-linked biodiversity loss worldwide.
Researchers warn current conservation policies overlook rural development pressures.
Cities have long been blamed as the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss. Their growth is highly visible, with forests cleared for roads, housing, industry and infrastructure.
Between 2000 and 2020, urban land worldwide expanded by nearly 25 million hectares, driven by population growth, economic development and rising demand for built-up space, according to global land-use data analysed in a new study.
Because cities grow through large, high-profile projects, they have dominated conservation debates and policy responses. Environmental impact assessments and biodiversity planning have therefore focused largely on urban areas.
But the study has suggested a quieter and more dispersed form of development is causing even greater damage to nature: the expansion of rural settlements.
The study, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment by Zhitao Liu and colleagues from the School of Resources and Environment at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, compares urban and rural settlement growth worldwide between 2000 and 2020 using high-resolution land-use and biodiversity datasets.
Its most striking finding is that biodiversity loss linked to rural settlements was 3.5 times greater than that associated with urban expansion.
Overall, the total biodiversity loss connected to rural settlement dynamics was equal to or greater than that caused by urban growth across most regions of the world.
The difference lies not in density, but in how and where rural settlements expand.
By 2020, urban settlements covered about 62.9 million hectares globally, while rural settlements covered around 82.8 million hectares, making them the dominant form of built-up land worldwide.
Urban growth is often relatively compact, particularly in high-income regions. Rural expansion, by contrast, tends to be low-density, scattered and outward-spreading. It includes farmhouses, second homes, resort-linked housing, roads, utilities and other infrastructure extending into surrounding landscapes.
The study shows that rural settlements expanded into 2.3 times more natural and semi-natural land than cities between 2000 and 2020.
Expansion within Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA), which are sites critical for the survival of threatened species, was 3.7 times faster for rural settlements than for urban ones.
This means that biodiversity-rich landscapes are increasingly being fragmented not by dense cities, but by dispersed development that often appears small and incremental.
The study does not focus only on land directly converted into buildings. It also models indirect impacts such as habitat fragmentation, increased access, noise, light, grazing, fuelwood collection and hunting.
These indirect effects dramatically increase the ecological footprint of settlements.
The researchers found that areas affected by settlement-related disturbance were more than 30 times larger than the land directly built over.
Because rural settlements are dispersed, these indirect impacts spread across much larger landscapes than those associated with cities, leading to greater biodiversity loss.
The effects of settlement expansion are unevenly distributed across regions.
According to the study, Asia accounts for more than half of global biodiversity loss linked to settlement growth, followed by Africa.
Within Asia, India and China together contribute around one-third of the global area of settlement expansion and land conversion.
The researchers link this to a combination of factors, including large rural populations, dense settlement networks, rising incomes and the close overlap between settlements and biodiversity-rich ecosystems.
The study does not suggest that rural communities are suddenly encroaching into forests. Instead, it highlights how outward expansion, lifestyle-driven development and infrastructure spread are steadily reshaping rural landscapes.
India emerges as a major hotspot of settlement-driven biodiversity loss, largely due to rural expansion.
Much of the country’s biodiversity — across the Western Ghats, the Himalayas, central Indian forests and coastal wetlands — exists outside cities, in landscapes where villages, farms and natural ecosystems overlap.
While the study does not analyse individual Indian locations, its findings align closely with trends already visible on the ground.
In the Western Ghats, village expansion along forest edges and wildlife corridors has increased pressure on endemic species and disrupted elephant and carnivore movement.
In central India, rural settlements continue to grow around tiger reserves. While large industries are regulated, gradual village expansion steadily erodes buffer zones and forest connectivity.
In the Himalayas, rural construction linked to roads and tourism has intensified disturbance in fragile mountain ecosystems.
Along India’s coasts, village expansion has encroached on mangroves and wetlands that protect shorelines and support fisheries.
The study finds that biodiversity loss is strongest in regions with high baseline biodiversity, particularly in tropical and subtropical areas such as India. Even small increases in settlement area in these regions can lead to disproportionately large losses of species.
Because rural expansion is gradual and dispersed, it often escapes regulation and scrutiny, unlike urban projects, which are more likely to face public attention and legal processes.
The intensification of agriculture in rural areas is another major driver of biodiversity loss, alongside other human pressures that reduce both the quantity and quality of ecosystem services.
“Expanded irrigation has increased water availability, prompting much of the agrarian community to shift from traditional crops to cash crops such as cotton, sugarcane, oilseeds and soybean, thereby placing immense pressure on biodiversity,” said Anish Andheria, president and chief executive of the Wildlife Conservation Trust.
“The growing reliance on pesticides and fertilisers further worsens the situation by degrading soil microfauna and invertebrates, which are fundamental to the web of life,” he added.
This shift has emptied rural landscapes of species that once thrived alongside farms.
“Intensive agricultural practices in rural India, with extensive use of weedicides, insecticides and fertilisers, have had a very serious impact on rural biodiversity,” said Yadvendradev Vikramsinh Jhala, an Indian scientist and conservationist.
“Common species that once abounded in the countryside, such as the grey francolin, black-shouldered kite, honey buzzard and even drongos, have vanished from many areas,” he said.
Jhala added that many fields have become biologically sterile, supporting little life beyond monoculture crops. Invasive plants such as Parthenium and Cassia tora spread easily in these disturbed landscapes, creating a cycle of chemical use and further biodiversity loss.
“In this context, the loss of rural biodiversity is comparable to that caused by urban sprawl,” he said.
The study highlights a significant gap in conservation policy.
Environmental impact assessments and land-use planning largely focus on cities, industries and large infrastructure projects. Rural settlement growth remains poorly regulated, even when it occurs in biodiversity-rich landscapes.
The researchers also modelled future settlement growth under different socio-economic scenarios. Under all scenarios, biodiversity loss linked to settlement expansion continues.
However, the study finds that more compact development could reduce future biodiversity loss by 8 to 14 per cent, with compact growth in rural areas delivering particularly large benefits for nature.