# Rural Road Assessment Method for Sustainable Territorial Development
## 2 Materials and Methods
#### Case Study  
A set of 101 basic rural roads in the region of La Araucania, Chile, has been proposed as a case study. The Region of La Araucania has a surface of 31,842 km\({}^{2}\), 32 communes, and a rural population of 281,127 people (32.3% regional population). By 2023, the road network in the region accounted for 13.6% of the national network, of which 75.6% (9060 km) were gravel or dirt roads. This represents the largest number of unpaired roads nationally [7]. A probabilistic sample of 101 projects, encompassing 976 km, was identified from a total of 119 regional basic road projects conducted between 2003 and 2017, with a confidence level of 95%. According to the Chilean Ministry of Public Works, the sample of roads falls into the category of basic roads for conservation [45]. It is distributed in eight territorial development zones for the region, as illustrated in Figure 2. The sample includes roads with gravel-wearing courses (62%) and double asphalt surface treatment with different levels of deterioration (48%) with an adjusted structural number less than 2.8 SNP. The width of the public road strip available for roads is between six and seven meters, depending on the area's geographical characteristics. One hundred percent of the sample has a mean annual daily traffic of no more than 150 vehicles/day. Administratively, the roads in the sample are categorized as low-traffic or very low-traffic local roads for communal interconnection and access. That is, roads support the intra-regional connectivity between rural locations or between rural locations and cities. The population groups residing within the rural area of influence of each road are concentrated in the range of 425 to 1390 inhabitants. The roads serve the basic needs of the rural population (access to basic schools, rural clinics, access to intermediate cities), alternative routes to recreational areas (ecotourism), agricultural and/or-livestock access, and alternative access to border crossings. The case study is associated with an assessment model composed of 16 criteria and 27 indicators that integrate the sustainable, technical, economic, environmental, and social dimensions required for the rural development of a territory (see Table 1). The criteria and evaluation indicators of the case study arise from the research team's previous work through project titled _Dynamic and Participatory Sustainability Assessment for Decision-making on Rural Basic Road Projects_[46]. Within the framework of this project, previous work documented by the research team in [13] determines the evaluation criteria and indicators. To do so, a review of the literature and a participatory-multidisciplinary process using neutrosophic logic was carried out. In fact, the main weights used of these criteria are represented in the contribution of [PERSON] et al. [13]. Likewise, a database was created from multiple secondary sources of information, field visits, and the application of a complementary survey. The database of sustainability indicators of the basic rural roads in the Araucania Region was captured between 2019 and 2022 and is currently publicly accessible [37]. In this line, this paper documents the continuation of the research of the work team.