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<p>Climate change is intensifying coastal flooding, riverine flooding and tropical cyclones, yet risks to telecommunications infrastructure remain poorly quantified despite growing societal dependence on digital connectivity. We present a global, event-based geospatial assessment of mobile cellular infrastructure vulnerability, combining open crowdsourced asset data with global climate hazard models under historical conditions and future scenarios, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. We analyse approximately 17 million mobile basestations worldwide, estimating exposure and direct damage across extreme-event return periods. Under RCP8.5 in 2050, a 0.1% annual probability tropical cyclone event affects an estimated 3.7 million basestations, causing USD 4.22 billion in direct damage. Under RCP8.5 in 2080, equivalent coastal flooding affects 268,000 basestations, causing USD 6.44 billion in damage. Riverine flooding affects more assets globally, approximately 2.8 million, but damages remain broadly stable at USD 46–47 billion. Telecommunications infrastructure assets should therefore be systematically incorporated into climate risk assessments.</p>

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Global vulnerability assessment of mobile telecommunications infrastructure to climate hazards using crowdsourced open data

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2026年8月3日

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  • Edward J. Oughton,
  • Tom Russell,
  • Jeongjin Oh,
  • Sara Ballan,
  • Jim W. Hall

摘要

Climate change is intensifying coastal flooding, riverine flooding and tropical cyclones, yet risks to telecommunications infrastructure remain poorly quantified despite growing societal dependence on digital connectivity. We present a global, event-based geospatial assessment of mobile cellular infrastructure vulnerability, combining open crowdsourced asset data with global climate hazard models under historical conditions and future scenarios, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. We analyse approximately 17 million mobile basestations worldwide, estimating exposure and direct damage across extreme-event return periods. Under RCP8.5 in 2050, a 0.1% annual probability tropical cyclone event affects an estimated 3.7 million basestations, causing USD 4.22 billion in direct damage. Under RCP8.5 in 2080, equivalent coastal flooding affects 268,000 basestations, causing USD 6.44 billion in damage. Riverine flooding affects more assets globally, approximately 2.8 million, but damages remain broadly stable at USD 46–47 billion. Telecommunications infrastructure assets should therefore be systematically incorporated into climate risk assessments.