1. Environmental Change Institute
Data and analytics for
infrastructure adaptation
Prof Jim Hall
Environmental Change Institute
University of Oxford

3. Global Commission
on Adaptation

4. Prioritizing resilient infrastructure investments
• Quantify and map climate risks
• Identify options for climate risk management:
• Infrastructure strengthening and maintenance
• Nature-based solutions
• System resilience: diversify, back-ups, repair and recovery
• Insurance and financial protection
• Quantify the risk reducing benefits of resilient infrastructure
• Prepare a pipeline of resilient investments and policies

5. Systemic ResilienceAssessmentTool
1. Climate hazards
2. Infrastructure exposure and
vulnerability
3. Economic and social impacts
4. Adaptation options appraisal
5. Resilient investment pipelines
Multiple
Hazard
Return
Period
maps
Infrastructure networks
Energy, Transport, Water
Infrastructure damage criticality maps

6. Results: Transport risk Analysis
Tanzania
Three future regional growth scenarios show major road corridors predicted to still carry
the highest transport flows with annual freight growth rates varying between 5%-9%
Quantifying the hazards,
at present and in the future
Percentage of region at
risk of flooding
Predicted change in flooded
area (2019-2030)

7. Identifying network exposure,
at present and in the future
Annual Average Daily Flow
(AADF) in tons (2016)
Predicted AADF (2030)

8. Mapping network interdependencies
Road
Rail
Water
Telecoms Electricity
Road Rail

9. Stress testing: Interdependent failure scenarios
Cascade from electricity:
• 40.7% of impacts are due to interdependencies
• Some failures propagate through 5 layers of interdependence
Pant, R., Russell, T., Zorn C., Oughton, E., and Hall, J.W. Resilience study research for NIC – Systems analysis of
interdependent network vulnerabilities. Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University, UK. May 2020, 106pp.

10. Koks, E., Pant, R., Thacker, S., Hall, J.W. Understanding business disruption and economic losses due
to electricity failures and flooding, International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 10(2019): 421–438.
Economic impacts of electricity sub-station failure

11. Infrastructure impacts of flooding
Eight times as many (20 million) properties are at risk of indirect
disruption due to flooding of utilities infrastructure than are at risk of
direct flooding from rivers and sea (2.4 million)
The total impact of flooding on infrastructure could be £2.0-£2.4
billion per day of disruption for a hypothetical 3.3% AEP flood event
with nationwide coverage (and up to £5.7-£10.0 billion for a 0.1%
AEP event)
For some types of asset, up to 80% of
assets are disrupted directly or indirectly
in a 0.1% AEP flood

12. Economic losses per day
Maximum
economic loss per
day from landslide,
flooding and storm
failures
Maximum economic
loss per day from
flooding failures

13. Adaptation options
Pavement improvement
Upgrading to gravel or sealed or full concrete
Drainage
Side, face and culverts
Earthworks
Embanking and cut slope construction
Slope protection
Gabions, river bank protections, bioengineering
Sources: Jasper Cook

14. Adaptation costs and benefits
Benefits = Avoided [Direct damages + Economic flow losses]
Costs
Timeline
Initial investment in adaptation
Periodic
maintenance
costs
Routine
maintenance
costs

15. Adaptation options and costs (Argentina)
Sources: World Bank ROCKS database
Assumed unit costs of adaptation options in USD/km
• All costing from Roads Cost Knowledge System (ROCKS) database for Argentina for highways road
projects
• Unit costs of bridges assumed to be highest – same as 4L Concrete design
Climate resilient
option type
Description of options
Number
of
projects
Cost/km
(mill
USD)
Increased
Cost/km
due to
climate
change
(mill
USD)
%
increase
due to
climate
change
Climate
resilient
design
Cost/km
(mill
USD)
Design
road
width
(m)
Initial investment
Upgrading to
Bituminous 2L
26 1.11 0.18 16.0% 1.29 7.3
Upgrading to Concrete
2L
4 1.32 0.21 16.0% 1.53 7.3
Upgrading to Concrete
4L
11 3.03 0.55 18.0% 3.58 14.6
Routine
maintenance
CREMA:
Rehabilitation and
Routine Maintenance
11 0.270 0.024 9.0% 0.294 7.3
Periodic
maintenance
Asphalt Mix
Resurfacing / Surface
Treatment Resurfacing
9 0.322 0.026 8.0% 0.346 7.3
Reconstruction Reconstruction 19 0.782 0.122 15.6% 0.904 7.3

16. Benefit-cost ratios of investment in enhancing
the resilience of the transport network

17. Sensitivity analysis of economics of adaptation
The case for investing in climate
resilience becomes stronger as the
durations of disruptive impacts
increases,
which in turn means that investing
in reducing the disruption
durations should be a priority of
adaptation planners in Argentina.

18. Upscaling to regional and global scales

19. Upscaling to regional and global scales

20. The destination
• Quantified spatial analysis of climate risks to
infrastructure networks… everywhere on Earth
• Estimates of economic losses in future scenarios
• Attribution of risk to assets in infrastructure networks…
which enables prioritization of resilience in planning,
engineering design, asset management and finance
• Real-time monitoring of progress at climate risk
reduction