44
Avoiding Future Disruption of Services
Floods are increasing in many places—Mozambique, Morocco, and Argentina, for instance—and can often be attributed to nonclimatic factors linked to land use, such as deforestation, slope destabilization, and, particularly in rapidly growing cities, expansion of paved areas and reduction of permeable surfaces. Without improvements in infrastructure and strategies for managing risk, intensified precipitation will only become more destructive. In October 2005, near Valigonda in Southern India, more than 100 people were killed when a train was derailed off bridge tracks that had been swept away by the overflow of water from a reservoir filled beyond capacity because of atypically heavy rains.4 Of course, more intense precipitation is a challenge not just to developing countries; nor does it always result in large-scale fatalities. The more common outcome may be harder-to-measure costs to transit-service users and businesses, as when the New York subway flooded in September 2004 and August 2007. The intense rains—about 75 mm per hour, or roughly double the quantity that the subway system is built to withstand—paralyzed the metropolitan area and resulted in at least one death. In the 2007 incident, flooding short-circuited essential electrical signals and switches so that none of the subway lines, which normally carry 7 million passengers daily, could run at full capacity during the morning rush hour. Even in areas that experience more total precipitation, dry spells and droughts could increase and water availability and soil moisture could decline significantly, rovides killing the natural or planted vegetation around roads and walkways that p shade and protects against erosion. The combination of drought and intense heat also increases wildfire risk. Wildfires can easily destroy transportation infrastructure, even as firefighting crews become more dependent on functioning transport networks. Storms that are more frequent, more intense, or both can cause major problems for road transport. Lack of preparedness for dealing with extreme snowfalls, which are likely to become larger or more frequent in some places,5 can be costly. In January 2008, unexpectedly intense snowstorms in China paralyzed the train system just as migrant workers were trying to return home for the Chinese New Year. Millions were stranded. Worse, with the interruption of coal delivery, food and power could not reach suffering populations in the southern and central provinces (Pew Center on Global Climate Change 2010; World Bank 2010b). Two years later, extreme snowfall on the east coast of the United States entirely shut down the economy of Washington, D.C., first in December 2009 and again in January 2010. Two such large snowstorms normally occur in the area about once every 25 years, not twice in two months.6 Road conditions were so bad at one point that snow-plow trucks themselves were barred from driving. Estimated losses to private businesses vary widely; closure of the federal government cost taxpayers about $71 million a day.7 Tropical storms and cyclones, which according to some evidence are already growing more intense, may well become stronger and more frequent. Storms regularly set off land- and mudslides in mountainous Central America, devastating both people and infrastructure. For example, in late May and early June 2010, Turning the Right Corner • http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/978-0-8213-9835-7