Citation

Koks EE, Rozenberg J, Zorn C, Tariverdi M, Vousdoukas M, Fraser SA, Hall JW, Hallegatte S. Nat. Commun. 2019; 10(1): e2677.

Affiliation

World Bank, Washington, DC, 20433, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1038/s41467-019-10442-3

PMID

31239442

Abstract

Transport infrastructure is exposed to natural hazards all around the world. Here we present the first global estimates of multi-hazard exposure and risk to road and rail infrastructure.

RESULTS reveal that ~27% of all global road and railway assets are exposed to at least one hazard and ~7.5% of all assets are exposed to a 1/100 year flood event. Global Expected Annual Damages (EAD) due to direct damage to road and railway assets range from 3.1 to 22 billion US dollars, of which ~73% is caused by surface and river flooding. Global EAD are small relative to global GDP (~0.02%). However, in some countries EAD reach 0.5 to 1% of GDP annually, which is the same order of magnitude as national transport infrastructure budgets. A cost-benefit analysis suggests that increasing flood protection would have positive returns on ~60% of roads exposed to a 1/100 year flood event.

Language: en