Cambodia: Geospatial Analysis for Resilient Road Accessibility for Human Development and Logistic Supply

The primary purpose of this report is to introduce a practical framework to assist the Ministry of Rural Development (MRD) of Cambodia to prioritize its investment and interventions for rural roads in order to achieve climate resilient rural accessibility for poverty reduction, human development, and logistic supply. The framework is based on two core geospatial models, namely the flood disruption model and the logistic supply chain model, to collectively identify the most critical and climate vulnerable road sections for prioritized interventions. The flood disruption model simulates the impact of flood disruptions to different rural roads under a 50-year flood scenario and identifies roads where the accessibility loss after flooding results in most damaging impact for rural communities to reach schools, hospitals, job opportunities, and for agriculture products to reach nearby markets. The logistic supply chain model simulates the disruption of Cambodia’s nodes and links and models how supply chain flows get rerouted or blocked, which leads to increase of product prices and shortage of product availability. It quantifies the relative importance of each logistics corridors as well as their rural feeder roads. Combining two models, the proposed framework enables MRD to deploy its limited resources to rural roads that matter the most. Section 1 gives introduction. Section 2 provides the basic context of Cambodia’s rural road network and the challenge imposed by climate change to rural road investment planning. Section 3 introduces the proposed prioritization framework and how it could assist better prioritization at MRD in practice. Section 4 elaborates how two underpinning geospatial models work, including the data, assumptions, and limitations of each model. Section 5 illustrates key results when the proposed prioritization is applied to Cambodia’s rural communes and recommends an indicative list of prioritized rural roads for illustration purpose. Section 6 provides a summary of the main recommendations, next steps for practitioners, and concluding remarks.