Tanzania: The Impact of Climate Change in Road Design

Climate change is a large-scale, long-term shift in the planet's weather patterns or average temperatures. The climate change includes, higher temperatures, changing rainfall pattern, changes in nature, sea level rises, retreating glaciers, sea ice and ice sheets.

Climate change may be due to natural processes or to persistent human induced changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use. Climate in a narrow sense is defined as the average weather, or more rigorously, as its statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of surface variables such as temperature, precipitation and wind over a period of time.

Weather refers to the conditions in the atmosphere and the air around us at a particular moment, including temperature, rain, sun and wind. Our assets, including highways and main roads are subjected to the effects of climate change and need to be adapted to make sure they are available for the community in years to come. The way we do business also has the potential to contribute to emergent climate issues meaning we must consider better, more sustainable ways to manage and operate the road network.