Extending natural hazard impacts: an assessment of landslide disruptions on a national road transportation network

Abstract

Disruptions to transportation networks by natural hazard events cause direct losses (e.g. by physical damage) and indirect socio-economic losses via travel delays and decreased transportation efficiency. The severity and spatial distribution of these losses varies according to user travel demands and which links, nodes or infrastructure assets are physically disrupted. Increasing transport network resilience, for example by targeted mitigation strategies, requires the identification of the critical network segments which if disrupted would incur undesirable or unacceptable socio-economic impacts. Here, these impacts are assessed on a national road transportation network by coupling hazard data with a transport network model. This process is illustrated using a case study of landslide hazards on the road network of Scotland. A set of possible landslide-prone road segments is generated using landslide susceptibility data. The results indicate that at least 152 road segments are susceptible to landslides, which could cause indirect economic losses exceeding £35 k for each day of closure. In addition, previous estimates for historic landslide events might be significant underestimates. For example, the estimated losses for the 2007 A83 'Rest and Be Thankful' landslide are £80 k day À1 , totalling £1.2 million over a 15 day closure, and are ∼60% greater than previous estimates. The spatial distribution of impact to road users is communicated in terms of 'extended hazard impact footprints' . These footprints reveal previously unknown exposed communities and unanticipated spatial patterns of severe disruption. Beyond cost-benefit analyses for landslide mitigation efforts, the approach implemented is applicable to other natural hazards (e.g. flooding), combinations of hazards, or even other network disruption events. perturbation to network operation (i.e. reduced access, travel delay and costlier routes). Consequently landslide hazard impact and population exposure is distributed far beyond the hazard's physical location. Critical network segments are those characterised by a high consequence of failure generally irrespective of likelihood [4,5]. A poignant example is the estimated £3.0 billion regional economic loss incurred in the South West, UK [6] by damage to 40 m of railway line during storm water levels exceeding previous maxima in 100 year historical records [7]. The identification of critical network segments is integrated within network management guidelines [8,9]. However, these operational assessments are limited to road segment

Potential future exposure of European land transport infrastructure to rainfall-induced landslides throughout the 21st century

“…The interruption of the track at Rastatt resulted in a massive congestion of freight trains all along the route due to the lack of alternative transport lines as well as the lack of engines and railroad engineers at alternative routes (FAZ, 2017;Ackeret, 2017;Gafner and Sommer, 2017). In addition to the direct economic damage, indirect and intangible costs such as noise disturbance and air pollution caused by an increased amount of cargo trains and heavy goods vehicles using alternative routes and the increased travel time for commuters, travellers and vacationers should be considered (Postance et al, 2017).…”

“…Extensive soil sealing across Europe (Nestroy, 2006), climate change (European Environment Agency, 2014;Loveridge et al, 2010) and extreme weather impacts (Schlögl and Laaha, 2017) challenge the resilience of transport systems, thus growing into a matter of major concern, not only because of physical damage to assets (Kellermann et al, 2015), but also due to potential overall societal losses caused by network failures and interruptions, which often far exceed infrastructure damage (Postance et al, 2017;Pfurtscheller and Vetter, 2015;Bíl et al, 2015;Pfurtscheller, 2014;Pfurtscheller and Thieken, 2013;Meyer et al, 2013). Thus, the assessment of land transport infrastructure exposure towards adverse climate events and related natural hazards is of great importance for Europe's economy, for its intermodal transport, its freight and logistics networks and for settlements in hazard-prone regions (Koetse and Rietveld, 2009;Doll et al, 2014).…”

Estimation of the susceptibility of a road network to shallow landslides with the integration of the sediment connectivity

“…Different authors (Budetta, 2004;Jaiswal et al, 2010aJaiswal et al, , b, 2011Quinn et al, 2010;Michoud et al, 2012;Bil et al, 2014Bil et al, , 2017Ramesh and Anbazhagan, 2015;Pellicani et al, 2017;Postance et al, 2017) had already used some of the previously described predictors in different data-driven model aiming to assess roads susceptible to being hit by shallow landslides. Until now, sediment connectivity has not been considered yet.…”

“…In recent years, several data-driven methodologies were built to identify the susceptible sectors of a road network to landslides (Budetta, 2004;Hearn et al, 2008;Jaiswal et al, 2010aJaiswal et al, , b, 2011Quinn et al, 2010;Michoud et al, 2012;Tarolli et al, 2013;Bil et al, 2014Bil et al, , 2017Penna et al, 2014;Ramesh and Anbazhagan, 2015;Tarolli and Sofia, 2016;Winter et al, 2016;Donnini et al, 2017;Pellicani et al, 2017;Postance et al, 2017;Martinovic et al, 2018). These methods are based on quantitative statistical relationships between predisposing factors and a response variable.…”

Disturbances to Urban Mobility and Comprehensive Estimation of Economic Losses

“…Sohn et al (2003) evaluated the significance of several bridges by quantifying the economic losses due to the 1812 New Madrid earthquake. Postance et al (2017) conducted economic estimation for scenarios of road segments disruptions simply by multiplying increasing travel time with national user generalized cost without considering any ripple effects of transportation disturbances. Cho et al (2001) and Gordon et al (2004) estimated direct, indirect, and induced economic losses of Elysian Park earthquake scenarios.…”