Building resilient infrastructure in China

ECI research helps boost China’s climate resilience by identifying infrastructure hotspots.

China’s economic miracle has been underpinned by significant infrastructure development. While infrastructure networks foster growth, a greater reliance on these networks increases the economic impact resulting from a systems failure. Of particular concern are climate impacts, such as floods and drought, which are known to occur periodically in China. New research from Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute (ECI) has mapped the key hot-spots where climate impacts pose the greatest economic risk. These include the large urban centres of Beijing, Tianjin, Jiangsu, Shanghai and Zhejian, where infrastructure is highly concentrated, and failure can have significant knock-on effects, not only to the local economy, but also further afield due to China’s pivotal role in the global supply chain. The Oxford research is the first national-level study to consider the exposure and vulnerability of China’s infrastructure systemically, and offers great scope to improve the resilience of China’s infrastructure, a national priority identified within China’s National Climate Change Adaptation Plan.

Further detail on the study can be found a blog written by ECI DPhil student, Xi Hu, for the World Economic Forum.