Prioritization of Climate Change Adaptation Interventions in a Road Network combining Spatial Socio-Economic Data, Network Criticality Analysis, and Flood Risk Assessments

Abstract

Climate change puts at risk all current and future transport projects. Investing proactively in climate adaptation of transport infrastructure is paramount to providing resilience and sustainable transport systems that may promote social and economic growth. Despite the importance of such investments, the financial resources of many road administrations are constrained, creating an urgent need to allocate these resources efficiently to capture the highest social, environmental, and economic benefits. This paper aims to tackle this issue by presenting a methodology to prioritize climate change adaptation interventions based on a set of economic, social, and risk reduction criteria. This method uses a network-wide approach to the road system in order to capture co-benefits, redundancies, and costs of disruption of road segments due to flood events. All underlying data in each of the criteria is part of a geospatial database that includes the location of agriculture, fishery production areas, high poverty, and flood maps. The methodology was developed at the request of the World Bank Africa Team to support the Government of Mozambique to prioritize climate change adaptation intervention in two central provinces, Zambezia and Nampula. After combining criteria for agriculture, fishery, poverty, network criticality, and hazard risk, the results suggest that most roads in the coastal districts of these provinces could be identified as top priority for climate change adaptation interventions.