A River Flood and Earthquake Risk Assessment of Railway Assets along the Belt and Road

Qianzhi Wang; Kai Liu; Ming Wang; Elco E. Koks

doi:10.1007/s13753-021-00358-2

Volume 12 Issue 4

Dec. 2021

Turn off MathJax

Article Contents

Article Navigation > International Journal of Disaster Risk Science > 2021 > 12(4): 553-567

Qianzhi Wang, Kai Liu, Ming Wang, Elco E. Koks. A River Flood and Earthquake Risk Assessment of Railway Assets along the Belt and Road[J]. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2021, 12(4): 553-567. doi: 10.1007/s13753-021-00358-2

Citation:

Qianzhi Wang, Kai Liu, Ming Wang, Elco E. Koks. A River Flood and Earthquake Risk Assessment of Railway Assets along the Belt and Road[J]. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2021, 12(4): 553-567. doi: 10.1007/s13753-021-00358-2

Citation:

PDF

A River Flood and Earthquake Risk Assessment of Railway Assets along the Belt and Road

doi: 10.1007/s13753-021-00358-2

Qianzhi Wang^1,2,
Kai Liu^{1,2
,
,},
Ming Wang^1,2,
Elco E. Koks³

1. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China;
2. Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China;
3. Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Funds:

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number 41771538) and the National Key Research and Development Plan (Grant Number 2017YFC1502901). The financial support is highly appreciated.

Available Online: 2021-12-25
Publish Date: 2021-12-25

Abstract

Abstract

Mitigating the disaster risk of transportation infrastructure networks along the Belt and Road is crucial to realizing the area’s high trade potential in the future. This study assessed the exposure and risk of existing and planned railway assets to river flooding and earthquakes. We found that about 9.3% of these railway assets are exposed to a one in 100 year flood event, and 22.3% are exposed to a one in 475 year earthquake event. The combined flood and earthquake risk of physical damage to railway assets, expressed by expected annual damage (EAD), is estimated at USD 1438 (between 966 and 2026) million. Floods contribute the majority of the risk (96%). China has the highest EAD for both floods and earthquakes (between USD 240 and 525 million in total). Laos and Cambodia are the countries with the highest EAD per km from flooding (USD 66,125–112,154 and USD 31,954–56,844 per km, respectively), while Italy and Myanmar have the highest EAD per km from earthquakes (USD 1000–3057 and USD 893–3019 per km, respectively). For the newly built and planned projects along the Belt and Road, the EAD is estimated at USD 271 (between 205 and 357) million. The China–Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor and China–Pakistan Economic Corridor have the highest absolute EAD and EAD per km, with EADs reaching USD 95 and USD 67 million, and USD 18 and USD 17 thousand per km, on average, respectively. For railway segments with high risks, we found that if the required adaptation cost within 20 years to realize a 10% increase of the railway quality is below 8.4% of the replacement cost, the benefits are positive.
- Belt and Road,
- Cost-benefit analysis,
- Disaster risk,
- Railway assets

FullText(HTML)

References(53)

References

Alfieri, L., B. Bisselink, F. Dottori, G. Naumann, A. de Roo, P. Salamon, K. Wyser, and L. Feyen. 2017. Global projections of river flood risk in a warmer world. Earth’s Future 5(2): 171–182.

ARCADIS. 2014. International construction cost report: What will it mean for 2015. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: ARCADIS.

Attinà, M., A. Basilico, M. Botta, I. Brancatello, F. Gargani, V. Gori, F. Wilhelm, and M. Menting et al. 2018. Assessment of unit costs (standard prices) of rail projects (CAPital EXpenditure). Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.

Bach, C., A.K. Gupta, S.S. Nair, and J. Birkmann. 2013. Critical infrastructures and disaster risk reduction. New Delhi: National Institute of Disaster Management and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

Bird, J.F., and J.J. Bommer. 2004. Earthquake losses due to ground failure. Engineering Geology 75(2): 147–179.

Campolongo, F., J. Cariboni, and A. Saltelli. 2007. An effective screening design for sensitivity analysis of large models. Environmental Modelling & Software 22(10): 1509–1518.

Chai, D., M. Wang, and K. Liu. 2020. Driving factors of natural disasters in Belt and Road countries. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 51: 101774.

CIMNE (Centro Internacional de Métodos Numéricos en Ingeniería) and INGENIAR (Ingeniería para el Análisis del Riesgo Ingenieros Consultores). 2015. Update on the probabilistic modelling of natural risks at global level: Global risk model. Background paper. Prepared for the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. Barcelona, Spain and Bogotá, Colombia: CIMNE and INGENIAR.

Cui, P., A.D. Regmi, Q. Zou, L. Yu, X.Q. Chen, and D.Q. Cheng. 2017. Natural hazards and disaster risk in One Belt One Road corridors. In Proceedings of the Workshop on World Landslide Forum 2017: Advancing Culture of Living with Landslides, ed. M. Mikos, B. Tiwari, Y. Yin, and K. Sassa, 1155–1164. Heidelberg: Springer.

De Bruijn, K., D. Wagenaar, K. Slager, M. de Bel, and A. Burzel. 2015. Updated and improved method for flood damage assessment: SSM2015 (version 2). Delft, The Netherlands: Deltares, 2015.

de Moel, H., and J. Aerts. 2011. Effect of uncertainty in land use, damage models and inundation depth on flood damage estimates. Natural Hazards 58(1): 407–425.

de Moel, H., N. Asselman, and J. Aerts. 2012. Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of coastal flood damage estimates in the west of the Netherlands. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 12(4): 1045–1058.

Edwin. 2014. Bridges and viaducts. Hot Rails, 8 September 2014. hotrails.net/2014/09/bridges_and_viaducts/. Accessed 29 Aug 2020.

Espinet, X., J. Rozenberg, K.S. Rao, and S. Ogita. 2018. Piloting the use of network analysis and decision-making under uncertainty in transport operations: Preparation and appraisal of a rural roads project in Mozambique under changing flood risk and other deep uncertainties. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 8490. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.

Feyen, L., R. Dankers, K. Bódis, P. Salamon, and J.I. Barredo. 2012. Fluvial flood risk in Europe in present and future climates. Climatic Change 112(1): 47–62.

Gürlük, S. 2016. Diagnostic of high social discount rate in developing countries and low social discount rate in developed countries. In Advances in environmental research, vol 49, ed. J.A. Daniels, 129–140. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers.

Han, J., ed. 2016. In China railway yearbook. Beijing: China Railway Publishing House (in Chinese).

Helsingsen, H., B. Milligan, M. Dailey, and N. Bhagabati. 2018. Greening China’s Belt and Road initiative in Myanmar: Rapid assessment of opportunities and risks for Myanmar’s natural capital. Myanmar: WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature). https://www.wwf.org.mm/en/news_room/publications/?uNewsID=318715. Accessed 29 Sept 2020.

Hirabayashi, Y., R. Mahendran, S. Koirala, L. Konoshima, D. Yamazaki, S. Watanabe, H. Kim, and S. Kanae. 2013. Global flood risk under climate change. Nature Climate Change 3(9): 816–821.

Kameshwar, S., and J.E. Padgett. 2014. Multi-hazard risk assessment of highway bridges subjected to earthquake and hurricane hazards. Engineering Structures 78: 154–166.

Kellermann, P., A. Schöbel, G. Kundela, and A.H. Thieken. 2015. Estimating flood damage to railway infrastructure—The case study of the March River flood in 2006 at the Austrian Northern Railway. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 15(11): 2485–2496.

Khan, A., Y. Chenggang, G. Khan, and F. Muhammad. 2020. The dilemma of natural disasters: Impact on economy, fiscal position, and foreign direct investment alongside Belt and Road initiative countries. Science of the Total Environment 743: Article 140578.

Koks, E.E., B. Jongman, T.G. Husby, and W.J.W. Botzen. 2015. Combining hazard, exposure and social vulnerability to provide lessons for flood risk management. Environmental Science & Policy 47: 42–52.

Koks, E.E., J. Rozenberg, C. Zorn, M. Tariverdi, M. Vousdoukas, S. Fraser, J. Hall, and S. Hallegatte. 2019. A global multi-hazard risk analysis of road and railway infrastructure assets. Nature Communications 10: Article 2677.

Kreibich, H., K. Piroth, I. Seifert, H. Maiwald, U. Kunert, J. Schwarz, B. Merz, and A.H. Thieken. 2009. Is flow velocity a significant parameter in flood damage modelling?. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 9(5): 1679–1692.

Kyriazis, P., A. Sotiris, K. Kalliopi, C. Helen, and T. Fabio. 2013. Systemic seismic vulnerability and risk analysis for buildings, lifeline networks and infrastructures safety gain. SYNER-G synthetic document. Luxembourg: Joint Research Centre, European Commission.

Lagadec, L.-R., L. Moulin, I. Braud, B. Chazelle, and P. Breil. 2018. A surface runoff mapping method for optimizing risk assessment on railways. Safety Science 110(Part B): 253–267.

Mao, X.Z., J. Liu, T. Li, and H. Qiu. 2018. Spatio-temporal patterns of natural disasters in countries along the Belt and Road. Journal of Natural Disasters 27(1): 1–8 (in Chinese).

Miyamoto. 2019. Overview of engineering options for increasing infrastructure resilience: Final Report. Washington, DC: World Bank Group. https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/474111560527161937/final-report. Accessed 30 Jul 2020.

Moran, A.P., A.H. Thieken, A. Schöbel, and C. Rachoy. 2010. Documentation of flood damage on railway infrastructure. In Data and mobility, ed. J. Düh, H. Hufnagl, E. Juritsch, R. Pfliegl, H.-K. Schimany, and H. Schönegger, 61–70. Heidelberg: Springer.

Morris, M.D. 1991. Factorial sampling plans for preliminary computational experiments. Technometrics 33(1): 161–174.

NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission) and NRA (National Railway Administration of the People’s Republic of China). 2016. China Railway Express construction and development plan (2016–2020). Beijing: National Railway Administration of the People’s Republic of China (in Chinese).

Ollivier, G., J. Sondhi, and N. Zhou. 2014. High-speed railways in China: A look at construction costs. China Transport Topics No. 9. Beijing: World Bank.

PICC (The People’s Insurance Company [Group] of China). 2014. Internal report of PICC. Beijing: PICC (in Chinese).

Refinitiv. 2020. BRI connect: The numbers behind the Belt and Road initiative. Amman, Jordan: Refinitiv. https https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/o1dLPVAd0Jbe2zWBm9K-IA. Accessed 30 Sept 2020.

Scawthorn, C., P. Flores, N. Blais, H. Seligson, E. Tate, S. Chang, E. Mifflin, and W. Thomas et al. 2006. HAZUS-MH flood loss estimation methodology. II. Damage and loss assessment. Natural Hazards Review 7: 72–81.

Schwab, K., X. Sala-i-Martín, and R. Samans. 2017. The global competitiveness report 2017–2018. Geneva: World Economic Forum.

Scussolini, P., J.C.J.H. Aerts, B. Jongman, L.M. Bouwer, H.C. Winsemius, H. de Moel, and P.J. Ward. 2016. FLOPROS: An evolving global database of flood protection standards. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 16(5): 1049–1061.

Tsubaki, R., J.D. Bricker, K. Ichii, and Y. Kawahara. 2016. Development of fragility curves for railway embankment and ballast scour due to overtopping flood flow. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences 16(12): 2455–2472.

Wang, C., X. Wu, and L. Zhou. 2018. Analysis of associated economic loss of meteorological disasters among the Belt and Road Typical Countries—Taking the China’s Typhoon Rammasun in 2014 as an example. In Proceedings of the 8th Annual Meeting of Risk Analysis Council of China Association for Disaster Prevention, 20–21 October 2018, Xi’an, China, 198–204. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Atlantis Press.

Ward, P.J., B. Jongman, J.C. Aerts, P.D. Bates, W.J. Botzen, A.D. Loaiza, S. Hallegatte, and J.M. Kind et al. 2017. A global framework for future costs and benefits of river-flood protection in urban areas. Nature Climate Change 7(9): 642–646.

Ward, P.J., B. Jongman, F.S. Weiland, A. Bouwman, R. van Beek, M.F. Bierkens, W. Ligtvoet, and H.C. Winsemius. 2013. Assessing flood risk at the global scale: Model setup, results, and sensitivity. Environmental Research Letters 8(4): 044019.

Warusawitharana, M. 2014. The social discount rate in developing countries. Washington, DC: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US).

Winsemius, H., L. Van Beek, B. Jongman, P. Ward, and A. Bouwman. 2013. A framework for global river flood risk assessments. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 17(5): 1871–1892.

Winsemius, H.C., J.C. Aerts, L.P. Van Beek, M.F. Bierkens, A. Bouwman, B. Jongman, J.C. Kwadijk, and W. Ligtvoet et al. 2016. Global drivers of future river flood risk. Nature Climate Change 6(4): 381–385.

Worden, C.B., D.J. Wald, J. Sanborn, and E.M. Thompson. 2015. Development of an open-source hybrid global Vs30 model. In Proceedings of the Seismological Society of America 2015 Annual Meeting, 21–23 April 2015, Pasadena, California, USA. https://www.usgs.gov/natural-hazards/earthquake-hazards/science/vs30-models-and-data?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects. Accessed 30 Sept 2020.

World Bank. 2019. Belt and Road economics: Opportunities and risks of transport corridors. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Wu, R. 2019. The risks and prevention of China’s railway “going global” – Based on Mombasa Nairobi Railway. Beijing: Beijing Jiaotong University (in Chinese).

Xi, P., and W. Liu. 2017. Ancient and modern silk road: Panoramic map of the Belt and Road initiative. Beijing: Sinomap Press (in Chinese).

Yu, L., P. Cui, A.D. Regmi, V. Murray, A. Pasuto, G. Titti, and M. Shafique. 2018. An international program on Silk Road Disaster Risk Reduction—A Belt and Road initiative (2016–2020). Journal of Mountain Science 15(4): 1383–1396.

Yu, X., X. Yu, C. Li, and Z. Ji. 2020. Information diffusion-based risk assessment of natural disasters along the silk road economic belt in China. Journal of Cleaner Production 244: 118744.

Zhu, J., L.G. Baise, and E.M. Thompson. 2017. An updated Geospatial Liquefaction Model for global application. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 107(3): 1365–1385.

Zorn, C., and E. Koks. 2019. Global liquefaction susceptibility map. . Accessed 30 May 2020. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2583746

Relative Articles

Supplements(0)

Cited By

Proportional views