Lanzhou City's controversial project turning 700 mountains into parking lots and high rise buildings is being assailed by a group of Chinese scientists who say the project in Gansu province will have disastrous outcomes.

Researchers Peiyue Li, Hui Qian and Jianhua Wu from Chang'an University's School of Environmental Science and Engineering hammered the largest mountain-moving project in Chinese history as an environmental disaster waiting to happen.

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In a report published in the science journal Nature, the researchers said Lanzhou's mountain flattening project, and others like it throughout China, has not been vetted environmentally, technically or economically.

They said that while flattening mountains is common practice in strip mining, this method has never been used for urban construction.

"There has been too little modeling of the costs and benefits of land creation," the researchers said. "Inexperience and technical problems delay projects and add costs, and the environmental impacts are not being thoroughly considered."

Lanzhou City government officials began the project to bulldoze more than 700 mountains in 2012. Once finished, the project will have erased formerly mountainous territory and turned it into a new city district suitable for office buildings.

TagsEnvironmental destruction, Lanzhou