Abstract
The African continent is facing the potential of a $183.6 billion USD liability to repair and maintain roads damaged from temperature and precipitation changes directly related to predicted climate change through 2100. This cost is strictly to retain the current road inventory. This cost does not include costs associated with impacts to critically needed new roads. In many African countries, limited or non-existent funds for adaptation and mitigation are challenging these countries to identify the threats that are posed by climate change, develop adaptation approaches to the predicted changes, incorporate changes into mid-range and long-term development plans, and secure funding for the proposed and necessary adaptations. Existing studies have attempted to quantify the impact of climate change on infrastructure assets that will be affected by climate change in the coming decades. The current study extends these efforts by specifically addressing the effect of climate change on the African road infrastructure. The study identifies both total costs and opportunity costs of repairing and maintaining infrastructure due to increased stressors from climate change. Proactive and reactive costs are examined for six climate scenarios, with costs ranging, respectively, from an average of $22 million USD to $54 million USD annually per country. A regional analysis shows contrast between impacts in five areas of the continent, with impacts ranging from 22 % opportunity cost to 168 %. These costs have the potential to delay critical infrastructure development on the continent and present a challenge to policy makers balancing short-term needs with long-term planning.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
AUSTROADS (2004) Impact of climate change on road infrastructure, Austroads Publication No. AP–R243/04, Sydney, Australia
CCSP (2006) Effects of climate change on energy production and use in the United States. US Climate Change Science Program, Department of Energy, Washington, DC
Chinowsky PS, Hayles C, Schweikert A and, Strzepek N (2011) “Climate change as organizational challenge: comparative impact on developing and developed countries.” Eng Proj Organ J
Galbraith RM, Price DJ, and Shackman L (2005) Scottish road network climate change study, Scottish Executive
Gwilliam K, Foster V, Archondo-Callao R, Briceño-Garmendia C, Nogales A, and Kavita S (2008) Africa infrastructure country diagnostic: roads in Sub-Saharan Africa, Summary of Background Paper 14, World Bank
Industrial Economics (2010) Costing climate impacts and adaptation: a Canadian study on public infrastructure, prepared for: National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, Industrial Economics, Inc.
IPCC (2007) Climate change 2007: synthesis report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, Pachauri, R.K and Reisinger, A. (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 104 pp
IRF (2009) World road statistics 2009. International Road Federation, Geneva, Switzerland
Kaberuka D (2009) “Kaberuka: Africa needs USD 40 Billion/Year in Climate Aid”. African Development Bank Group, 12/02/2009. http://www.afdb.org/en/news-events/article/climate-change-conference-an-opportunity-for-africa-6671/
Khandker SR, Koolwal GB (2010) How infrastructure and financial institutions affect rural income and poverty: evidence from Bangladesh. J Dev Stud 46(6):1109–1137
Larsen PH, Goldsmith S, Smith O, Wilson M, Strzepek K, Chinowsky P, Saylor B (2008) Estimating the future costs of Alaska public infrastructure at risk from climate change. Glob Environ Chang 18(3):442–457
Lohmann U, Sausen R, Bengtsson L, Cubasch U, Perlwitz J, Roeckner E (1993) The K¨oppen climate classification as a diagnostic tool for general circulation models. Clim Res 3:177–193
Meehl GA, Covey C, Delworth T, Latif M, McAvaney B, Mitchell JFB, Stouffer RJ, Taylor KE (2007) The WCRP CMIP3 multi-model dataset: a new era in climate change research. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 88:1383–1394
Mills B and Andrey J (2002) “Climate change and transportation: potential interactions and impacts.” In: The potential impacts of climate change on transportation: workshop summary, U.S. Dept. of Transportation, Workshop, 1–2 October, http://climate.volpe.dot.gov/workshop1002/.
Mutume G (2002) Building an efficient road network: public-private partnerships hold the key to regional infrastructure. Africa Recovery 16(2-3):23
Stratus Consulting (2010) Climate change impacts on transportation infrastructure, Prepared for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
TRB (2008) Potential impacts of climate change on US transportation, TRB Special Report 290. Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC
UNFCCC (2009) “Support needed to fully implement National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPA’s), least developed countries”. LDC Expert Group 2009. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
World Bank (2009). The costs to developing countries of adapting to climate change new methods and estimates, Consultation Draft, World Bank
World Bank (2010). Economics of adaptation to climate change. World Bank, Ethiopia
Acknowledgement
This research is partly funded by a grant from the University of Copenhagen. The authors also recognize the World Bank for supporting the initial work in that enabled the final comparison study. The authors acknowledge the modeling groups, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) and the WCRP’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM) for their roles in making available the WCRP CMIP3 multi-model dataset. Support of this dataset is provided by the Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy. Finally, the authors acknowledge Xiang Guo, David Johnson and William Farmer JP, for data analysis.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary materials
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
ESM 1
(DOCX 34 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chinowsky, P., Schweikert, A., Strzepek, N. et al. Climate change adaptation advantage for African road infrastructure. Climatic Change 117, 345–361 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0536-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0536-z