Climate change is expected to have important implications of the cost, design standards and location of Africa's infrastructure projects. Since what climate will actually occur will remain largely uncertain in the foreseeable future, the challenge is to develop decision making frameworks capable of leading to investment decisions that are “desirable” under a wide range of possible climate outcomes. FutureWater is providing the foundation for the development of these frameworks. This involves conducting a rapid stock-taking exercise to ensure that there is a thorough understanding of the actors, on-going activities and available models and datasets upon which the new work will build and developing a conceptual framework for the subsequent analysis of Africa’s infrastructure.
The infrastructure deficit in Africa is vast. The World Bank estimates that $US 93 billion is needed to improve Africa’s infrastructure; nearly half of it on power supply. This amount will be much greater for new infrastructure that is (i) low carbon, (ii) climate proofed, and (iii) developmentally-sound and sustainable. Climate change is expected to have important implications of the cost, design standards and location of infrastructure projects in a number of ways:
- As extreme events become more frequent, the cost of meeting a given reliability standard can be expected to increase;
- Climate change could be expected to alter the optimal standard to which infrastructure should be built;
- Climate change can be expected to alter the pattern of demand for infrastructure;
- Climate change could be expected to affect the optimal choice of infrastructure technologies;
- Since infrastructure basically increases the inter-connectedness of places, it provides a natural way of diversifying climate risk.
Since what climate will actually occur will remain largely uncertain in the foreseeable future, the challenge is to develop decision making frameworks capable of leading to investment decisions that are “desirable” under a wide range of possible climate outcomes. FutureWater is providing the foundation for the development of these frameworks. This involves conducting a rapid stock-taking exercise to ensure that there is a thorough understanding of the actors, on-going activities and available models and datasets upon which the new work will build and developing a conceptual framework for the subsequent analysis.
Related publications
2012 - FutureWater Report 111
Helleman-Melling, J., S.S. Awadalla, P. Droogers, J. Neumann. 2012. Addressing Climate Vulnerability of Africa's Infrastructure. Stock-Taking Exercise: Overview of Existing Analytical Work. FutureWater Report 111X
Addressing Climate Vulnerability of Africa’s Infrastructure. Stock-Taking Exercise: Overview of Existing Analytical Work
Helleman-Melling, J., S.S. Awadalla, P. Droogers, J. Neumann
