Evaluating climate impacts on geographical accessibility to basic services in rural Colombia

Abstract

Climate change exacerbates extreme natural hazards such as floods and landslides, potentially affecting large areas worldwide, including urban and rural areas. This research measures the impact of flooding and landslides on accessibility in Colombia, a country facing significant topographical challenges. Many variables exacerbate accessibility challenges, e.g., decades of armed conflict have hindered the development of rural communities. We implement an accessibility measure to assess the impact of natural hazards on the road infrastructure under different return periods using census and crowdsourcing data. In addition, we calculate the effect of climate change yearly. Finally, we evaluate accessibility impacts across vulnerable communities, considering rurality, income, and armed conflict. Results show that 22.32% of the population experiences travel times higher than 1 h to the main town in the baseline scenario, increasing by 32% on average because of floods or landslides in the 100-year return period, disproportionately affecting more rural and low-income communities.