Climate change adaptation and cost-benefit analysis

Current methods and tools for the cost-benefit analysis of climate change adaptation initiatives fail to take sufficient account of prevailing climate change phenomena. The Klima 2050 Centre has carried out an assessment of existing tools used by the public sector partners affiliated to the Centre, including the EFFEKT tool employed by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration (NPRA). EFFEKT currently includes a landslide module, but it lacks the functionality to calculate costs linked to floods, and the flooding of roads and the roads network. Floods and flooding phenomena are distinct from landslides because, among other things, they can easily have an impact on large parts of the roads network, including those designated as diversionary routes. Work at the Centre has resulted in the identification and assessment of an excellent opportunity to develop a flood module for the EFFEKT tool. A key modification to the current approach is that the flood module will also enable the addition of extrapolations of parameters linked to flooding probability and frequency. This will provide valuable knowledge and insights into the consequences of flooding on roads and transport infrastructure and, not least, the impacts of changes in natural hazard risk. SINTEF is currently advancing this work by developing a pilot version for floods and flooding in the road closure module that is already incorporated in the EFFEKT tool used for landslide analysis. The project has been commissioned by the NPRA.