Many of us take roads for granted, but islands can have a harder time keeping them available.
Farah Nibbs, assistant professor of emergency and disaster health systems at University of Maryland Baltimore County, looks into why.
Farah Nibbs is a disaster scientist who studies the intersection of critical infrastructure and disasters in Small Island Developing States (SIDS), a group of 39 States and 18 Associate Members of United Nations regional commissions geographically located in the Caribbean, the Pacific, the Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea that face unique social, economic, and environmental vulnerabilities.
She focuses particularly on the impact of disasters on water and road infrastructure in Caribbean islands. Nibbs received her doctorate from the University of Delaware where she studied disaster science and management. She joined the Emergency and Disaster Health Systems department at UMBC as an assistant professor in 2023.
Read more about her research in The Conversation, Sargassum is choking the Caribbean’s white sand beaches, fueling an economic and public health crisis” (2024), Thirsty in paradise: Water crises are a growing problem across the Caribbean islands” (2024), and “Harvesting rain could help Caribbean countries keep the water on after hurricanes” (2018).
Road Infrastructure Resilience in the Eastern Caribbean
Frequent and intense natural hazard events such as hurricanes and floods damage roads and disrupt road management in the Eastern Caribbean. These events are happening at a pace that is overwhelming the current design standards for roads in the region.
The problem faced by these islands consists of two correlated factors. The first centers around the limitations related to the strategic management of roads and the second relates to the issue of natural hazard threats. The combination of these factors creates unique contextual challenges and uncertainties for the future of road management in these islands.
Between 2022 – 2023 I conducted research to try to understand why road infrastructure in the region is so vulnerable to natural hazards and how these roads are being managed in the face of such challenges.
My research found that most damage to roads occur due to hydro-meteorological hazards, with disruptions taking place multiple times a year. These disruptions hamper road agencies’ ability to optimally operate road assets due to unplanned delays and closures.
Road agencies such as the Public Works Departments also face a challenging combination of factors such as an existing backlog of roads in need of repair and maintenance; lack of available financing for new road construction and mitigating the impact of disasters on roads.
These findings suggest that road infrastructure resilience is still a challenge in these islands.
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