Interdisciplinary perspectives on the intersections of roads, sustainable development, and disaster resilience

Published in International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Volume 128, October 2025
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2025.105691

Ellen B. Robson, Peter McGowan, Hanna A. Ruszczyk, Bruce D. Malamud, Edward Simpson, Alexander L. Densmore, Neil Denton, Natasha Chapplow, Phurwa Gurung, Tilley E. Hall, Rebekah Harries, Jack Jenkins, Apil K.C., Richard Kotter, Ashutosh Kumari, Bina Limbu, David Milledge, Gina Porter, Nick Rosser, Fatih E. Taylor, Kifle Woldearegay

Abstract
Natural hazard-influenced disasters, sustainable development, and roads are closely intertwined. Governments and funding agencies worldwide are increasingly focused on delivering disaster-resilient road infrastructure. However, the multiplicity, ubiquity, and contested nature of road networks mean that making them resilient to disasters is a complex task. Efforts to build resilient roads generate trade-offs against other policy goals like climate resilience and sustainable development and always carry political implications.

In this paper, we synthesise discussions from a one-day hybrid workshop on the intersections between roads, development, and disaster resilience with 50 practitioners, policymakers, and scholars. We identify two central themes: (i) the political ecology of road networks and (ii) the key players and politics surrounding road construction and maintenance. Through this synthesis and comparison with existing scholarship, we present working definitions of disaster resilience for both themes. For political ecology, road disaster resilience is understood as a function of uneven power dynamics and the political work roads do. For road actors and politics, resilience emerges from relationships between stakeholders, decision-making, and ownership. In synthesising both themes, we develop the concept of “roads-in-relation” as a new framing device for future interdisciplinary road resilience research.