Correlation Study of Environmental Impacts of Highways Based on DPSIR and X-Matrix

In order to further clarify the types and strengths of the relationships among driving force, pressure, state, and influence in the DPSIR model of highway engineering, the driving force-pressure correlation, pressure-state correlation, state-influence correlation, and pressure-influence correlation of Shandong Province’s S103 Tourist Highway have been investigated by integrating the DPSIR framework with the X-Matrix matrix. According to the DPSIR model framework, based on the actual highway engineering and data availability, the driving force indicators are selected as economic development indicators, population indicators, tourism development indicators, traffic forecast indicators, the pressure indicators are selected as social pressure and environmental pressure, the state indicators are selected as social environment, water environment, atmospheric environment, and noise environment, the impact indicators are selected as ecological environmental protection and restoration cost, environmental pollution control cost, potential loss caused by environmental damage, response indicators are selected to rationalize the use of terrain, strengthen the protection of water bodies, take measures to reduce dust, and control sound and light pollution. Integration of the DPSIR framework with the X-Matrix matrix, standardization of the data using the Z-score normalization method, and Pearson correlation analysis using IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 were performed. The results showed that there was a low correlation between stress and drive, a medium-strength correlation between stress and affect, and a medium-strength correlation between affect and state. Therefore, in terms of response, depending on the degree and nature of the relationship between the indicators and the impact indicators, response strategies can be targeted to minimize environmental impacts as well as to restore the state of the environment.