Climate effects on US infrastructure: the economics of adaptation for rail, roads, and coastal development

This paper estimates impacts to railroad, roads, and coastal properties using models that analyze vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation under three infrastructure management response scenarios: No Adaptation; Reactive Adaptation, and Proactive Adaptation. Comparing damages under each of these potential responses provides strong support for facilitating effective adaptation in these three sectors. Already, the US road and rail systems are in poor condition, with large portions exhibiting significant deterioration and in need of repair or replacement. Despite these challenges, limited literature exists that quantifies the vulnerability of US infrastructure to changes in climate and assesses the potential for adaptive action to mitigate these risks.

This paper finds new evidence of the vulnerability of US rail, road, and coastal infrastructure to multiple climate stressors. Lack of action on both fronts is expected to lead to costs in the range of $100s of billions annually by the end of this century, dominated by costs in the road sector, with important but more geographically limited impacts in the coastal property and rail sectors. The results also make clear that the benefits of action, for both adaptation and greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, are large, even if there appears to be little potential to completely eliminate residual damage and costs with the most expansive adaptation plans. The overall results also illustrate that both the vulnerabilities and the potential for adaptation action to reduce those vulnerabilities vary substantially across the USA.