Category: Infrasctructure

Climate change is expected to significantly affect Ethiopian infrastructure through extreme weather events, such as floods and droughts. High precipitation amounts can lead to flooding of transport infrastructure including roads, railroads and airports, while high temperatures can cause roads, bridges and protective structures to develop cracks and degrade more quickly. This will require earlier replacement and lead to higher maintenance and replacement costs [23]. Transport infrastructure is vulnerable to extreme weather events, yet essential for agricultural livelihoods. Roads serve communities to trade goods and access healthcare, education, credit and other services. Especially in rural areas, roads are the backbone of Ethiopia’s transportation network with more than 90 % of exports and imports transported by road [24]. Investments will have to be made into building climate-resilient road networks [25].

Extreme weather events will also have devastating effects on human settlements and economic production sites, especially in urban areas with high population densities like Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa or Mekelle. Informal settlements are particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events: Makeshift homes are often built in unstable geographical locations including steep slopes or river banks, where flooding can lead to loss of housing, contamination of water, injury or death. Dwellers usually have low adaptive capacity to respond to such events due to high levels of poverty and lack of risk-reducing infrastructures. For example, heavy rains in May and June 2019 have caused flooding in 38 districts across seven regions of Ethiopia, displacing 42306 families and causing livestock death and property damage [26]. Flooding and droughts will also affect hydropower generation: Ethiopia is planning to increase its hydropower capacity from 3.7 gigawatts in 2015 to a volume of 19.5 gigawatts in 2030, however, variability in precipitation and climatic conditions could severely disrupt hydropower generation [27].

Despite the risk of infrastructure damage being likely to increase due to climate change, precise predictions on specific location and extent of exposure are difficult to make. For example, projections of river flood events are subject to substantial modelling uncertainty, largely due to the uncertainty of future projections of precipitation amounts and their spatial distribution, affecting flood occurrence (see also Figure 4). Among the models applied for this analysis, two models project only a slight increase and one model projects a stronger increase in the exposure of major roads to river floods at least once a year. The very likely range of model results indicates that road exposure to floods may increase by 70 % by 2080 (from 1.3 % of the national road network exposed in 2000 to 2.1 % in 2080). However, projections are characterised by high modelling uncertainty with median projections for RCP6.0 showing only a 0.2 % change from 2000 to 2080 (Figure 12). Hence, no reliable estimations on future occurrence of river floods can be made. Also, urban land area exposed to floods at least once a year is projected to increase (Figure 13), with a very likely range of 0.1–1.1 % by 2080 under RCP6.0.

With the exposure of the GDP to heatwaves projected to increase from around 0.3 % in 2000 to 1.4 % (RCP2.6) and 2.8 % (RCP6.0) by the end of the century, economic policy planners are advised to start identifying heat-sensitive production sites and activities, and integrating climate adaptation strategies such as improved solar-powered cooling systems or switching the operating hours from day to night.

References

[23] Ministry of Transport of Ethiopia, “Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Transport Sector Strategy,” Addis Ababa.
[24] EPCC, “First Assessment Report – Summary of Reports for Policy Makers,” Addis Ababa, 2015.
[25] T. Gebre and F. Nigussa, “Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Measures in the Urban Road Transport Sector of Ethiopia,” Environ. Prog. Sustain. Energy, vol. 38, no. 5, pp. 1–8, 2019.
[26] OCHA, “Ethiopia: Situation Report No. 23,” 2019.
[27] D. Conway, P. Curran, and K. E. Gannon, “Policy brief: Climate risks to hydropower supply in eastern and southern Africa,” no. August, 2018.

Extreme weather events have been the cause of major damage to the infrastructure sector in Ghana in the past. A study by Twerefou et al. [25] from 2014, for example, states that within one year, 1016 km of roads were destroyed, 13 bridges collapsed and 442 sewers damaged in the northern region of Ghana in 2007 alone through climate-related events. In general, high temperature can cause roads to develop cracks, while high precipitation rates may create potholes or deepen existing ones. [26]. Transport infrastructure is very vulnerable to extreme weather events and yet very important for social, economic and agricultural livelihoods. Roads allow communities to trade their goods and access healthcare, education, credit, as well as other services, especially in rural and remote areas of Ghana.

Storms, extreme rainfall and floods can also have devastating effects on economic production sites as well as settlements, especially in areas where large populations reside, such as Accra, Kumasi and Tamale. Informal settlements are particularly vulnerable to these events, as structures are generally weak and dwellers have low adaptive capacity to respond to disruptive events. Hydropower generation plants are affected by both droughts and floods, whereas sea level rise is already beginning to erode coastal roads [27]. Overall, climate change will make the life span of infrastructure shorter than planned while maintenance costs will increase significantly to keep them functioning [27], [28].

Under climate change, extreme weather events are likely to become more frequent, and temperatures are projected to rise. Accordingly, the risk for infrastructure damage in the country is likely to increase. However, precise predictions of the location and extent of exposure are difficult to make. For example, projections of river flood events are subject to substantial modelling uncertainty, largely due to the uncertainty of future projections of precipitation amounts and their spatial distribution, affecting affecting flood occurrence (see also Figure 5). According to this analysis, flood projections show a decrease in exposure for one climate model, no change for another, a slight increase for the third and a strong increase for the fourth. Thus, no reliable estimates on river flood occurrence in the future can be made. While median model trends suggest an approximate doubling of road exposure to floods under RCP6.0 (Figure 13) from 2000 to 2080, the very likely range of model results indicates a possibility of up to a fivefold increase in road exposure to floods by 2080 (from 0.2 % of the national road network exposed in 2000 to 1.1 % in 2080). Also urban land area exposed to floods is projected to increase (Figure 14), with a very likely range of 0–0.6 % of the urban area exposed by 2080 under RCP 6.0.

Twerefou et al. [27] estimate that the future (2020-2100) cost of climate change-related damage on road infrastructure will amount to USD 473 million if no adaptation actions are taken, and USD 678.47 million if pricing in the costs for adaptation efforts in designing and constructing new road infrastructure. They estimate that the highest adaptation costs will incur in the northern region and the lowest in the greater Accra region.

With the impact to GDP from heatwaves projected to increase from around 5 % in 2000 to 15 % (RCP2.6) and 20 % (RCP6.0) by the end of the century, it is recommended that policy planners start identifying heat-sensitive economic production sites and activities, and integrating climate adaptation options, such as improved, solar-powered cooling systems or switching of operation times from day to night.

References

[25] D. Twerefou, K. Adjei-Mantey, and N. Strzepek, “The economic impact of climate change on road infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa countries: evidence from Ghana,” 2014.
[26] M. Taylor and M. Philp, “Adapting to climate change-implications for transport infrastructure, transport systems and travel behaviour,” Road Transp. Res., vol. 19, no. 4, 2011.
[27] D. Twerefou, K. Adjei-Mantey, and N. Strzepek, “The economic impact of climate change on road infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa countries: evidence from Ghana,” World Institute for Development Economics Research. Helsinki, Finland, 2014.