Systemic Risks: Cascading Climate Impacts in Europe’s Transport Network.

Imagine a major river flood hits Germany. A few rail lines go underwater, some inland port docks are submerged, and a stretch of road becomes impassable. Traditional risk assessments would tally the cost of repairing those physical assets: damaged tracks, flooded terminals and roads, and stop there. But what about the factories hundreds of kilometres away that depend on those rail lines to receive raw materials? What about the shipments that must now take longer, more expensive detours through already-congested alternative routes?

The MIRACA approach answers these broader questions and demonstrates that the true cost of climate disruption to Europe’s transport network is far greater than the sum of its impacted parts.

The Trans-European Transport Network keeps Europe moving

The North Sea-Rhine–Mediterranean (NSRM) corridor is one of nine Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) corridors that act as primary arteries moving goods and people to their destinations. Stretching across eight countries–Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy–the NSRM comprises roughly 12,150 km of rail, 5,000 km of road, and 5,030 km of inland waterways. The network is a vital economic artery and handles over 15% of Europe’s road freight, more than 44% of rail freight, and nearly 90% of inland waterway freight.

In the maps below, the MIRACA model visualises pan-European freight flows through the TEN-T corridors for railway (at right) and road transport (at left), highlighting the importance of these corridors for facilitating supply chains with long-distance transportation flows. The NSRM corridor is highlighted in green and pink.

Animated map of western Europe highlighting the countries of the North Sea–Rhine–Mediterranean corridor: Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy — Roads and rails of The North Sea–Rhine–Mediterranean (NSRM) corridor.

Why multimodal matters

The NSRM corridor is considered multimodal because it integrates road, rail, inland waterways, maritime ports, and airports into an interconnected system. The MIRACA framework models all of these transport modes as a network, tracing freight flows from their industrial origins to their destinations. This is critical because disruptions rarely stay within a single transport mode. For example, a flooded inland port doesn’t just stop barges from loading; it forces cargo onto trucks and trains, which then face increased congestion and capacity limits.

Industries in the NSRM corridor

Industries dominating the use of the NSRM corridor include commercial goods production in Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium, and mineral and livestock across most all regions.

In the maps below, facilities are sorted by production size and categorised by one of eight economic sectors that together comprise the commodities sourced in and transported through countries served by the NSRM corridor.

Map of the NSRM corridor countries showing industrial facilities from all economic sectors as coloured dots sized by production, overlaid with the corridor's transport routes — All sectors + corridors

Eight small maps of the NSRM corridor countries, one per economic sector: chemicals, commercial, energy, food and beverage, intensive livestock, metals, minerals, and paper and wood, with facilities shown as dots sized by production — Main industries in the NSRM corridor. The size of the dots represents thousand of tons per year of production. Data: Oxford Programme for Sustainable Infrastructure Systems. Visualisation: Lobelia.

From damaged transportation assets to cascading economic loss

Using river flood scenarios ranging from moderate to extreme severity, direct physical damage to transport systems (including roads, railways, inland waterway ports, seaports, and airports) was estimated based on flood depth and infrastructure vulnerability. Then these physical damages were incorporated into a multimodal network flow model to understand how freight would be disrupted. Freight flows and disruptions were modelled to and from industry locations to the rest of Europe and beyond Europe.

Freight disruptions cause industry impacts

Two types of economic impacts to industry emerged from the flooding scenarios: losses from re-routing (i.e., increased cost of alternative routing) and losses from isolation (i.e., industries being cut off from accessing transport routes).

When freight is rerouted it can still reach its destination, but via longer, costlier alternative routes, increasing transport expenses across the supply chain. When freight is isolated, no viable alternative route exists and the industrial facility is entirely cut off from its supply chain. When this happens, the full economic value of the undelivered goods is lost.

By tracing freight flows back to the specific industries that depend on them, the model revealed that the minerals and metals sectors experience the greatest disruption, largely because of their heavy reliance on rail freight — the mode whose failure generated the largest supply chain impacts.

The maps below compare the locations and economic sectors impacted from failures in three types of transport systems: inland waterways, railways, and roads.

Three maps of the NSRM corridor countries showing industrial facilities disrupted by failures in inland waterways, rail and roads, with rail failures affecting the most facilities — The locations of the main industries and commodities in the NSRM corridor disrupted by transport failures in: inland waterways at left, rail in the centre, and roads at right. Disruptions caused by port and airport failures are not shown, as these primarily affect international flows. The size of dots represents tons in thousands per year of production. Data: Oxford Programme for Sustainable Infrastructure. Visualisation: Lobelia.

The present and future direct and indirect costs

Direct physical damage from river flooding across the NSRM corridor amounts to almost €930 million per year in expected annual damages and in a future +2º world, these costs double to over €1.87 billion.

Looking at the indirect costs from flooding, such as rerouting and industry isolation, current damages amount to approximately €540 million, and in the future they are expected to increase to almost €900 million.

Stacked bar chart of expected annual flood damage by transport mode: direct damages rise from €928.5 million at baseline to €1.87 billion at +2 °C, and indirect losses rise from €545.3 million to €894 million — The above chart compares the present and future projected annual direct damages (left) with the present and future projected annual indirect losses (right) for the countries in the NSRM corridor. Data: Oxford Programme for Sustainable Infrastructure. Visualisation: Lobelia.

What this means

Two messages become clear. One is that damages from extreme climate events and associated costs will rise in the future. The second is that assessing only the physical damage to transport infrastructure underestimates the true economic risk of climate disruption. Repercussions from flooded rail segments in France can cascade through supply chains to affect industries in Germany, Netherlands, and beyond. By identifying the specific network bottlenecks whose failure produces the greatest systemic consequences, this network-based approach gives decision-makers a far more accurate basis for prioritising climate adaptation investments. Limited resources can then be directed not just toward protecting individual assets, but toward strengthening the connections that keep Europe’s economy moving.

The MIRACA network risk assessment approach aligns with EU regulations for TEN-T infrastructure by supporting two key objectives: (1) safeguarding the economic competitiveness and cohesion of the EU, and (2) promoting sustainable transport, particularly railways, which this in depth analysis identifies as the most vulnerable mode requiring urgent protection.

To explore more details on the modelling of pan-European freight and the TEN-T Network, visit the MIRACA Work bench.