Climate change, groundwater salinization and road maintenance costs in coastal Bangladesh

Susmita Dasgupta, Md. Moqbul Hossain, Mainul Huq and David Wheeler

No 7147, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: The potentially-adverse impact of salinity on paved roads is well-established in the engineering literature. The problem seems destined to grow, as climate-related changes in sea level and riverine flows drive future increases in groundwater salinity. However, data scarcity has prevented systematic analysis for poor countries. This paper assesses the impact of groundwater salinity on road maintenance expenditures in the coastal region of Bangladesh. The assessment draws on new panel measures of salinity from 41 stations in coastal Bangladesh, and road maintenance expenditures, income, road network length, and road surfaces from 20 coastal municipalities. In a model relating maintenance expenditure for paved roads to groundwater salinity, municipal income, and road network length, large and significant effects are found for salinity. The regression model is used to predict the effect of within-sample salinity variation on road maintenance expenditure share, holding municipal income and road length constant at sample mean values. Increasing salinity from its sample minimum to its sample maximum increases the predicted road maintenance expenditure share by 252 percent. The implied welfare impact may also be substantial, particularly for poor households, if diversion of expenditures to road maintenance reduces support for community sanitation, health, and other infrastructure related programs.

Keywords: Transport Economics Policy&Planning; Water Conservation; Roads&Highways; Rural Roads&Transport; Water Resources Assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-12-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev, nep-env and nep-tre
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