Modelling the Impact of Climate Change on Infrastructure Maintenance Costs in the Niger Delta Region

The Niger Delta region faces some of Nigeria's most acute climate vulnerabilities, including coastal flooding, saltwater intrusion, and intensifying rainfall variability, which impose significant and growing costs on infrastructure maintenance. This study models the impact of climate change scenarios on infrastructure maintenance costs in the Niger Delta, covering road, drainage, and building assets in Rivers, Bayelsa, and Delta States. A positivist paradigm underpins a quantitative design integrating climate projection data from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, physical asset vulnerability modelling, and maintenance cost data from 65 infrastructure assets over a 10-year baseline period. Scenario-based life cycle cost modelling and stochastic simulation were applied. Findings project that under a medium emissions scenario, annual infrastructure maintenance costs in the Niger Delta will increase by 35% to 58% in real terms by 2040 relative to the 2024 baseline, with coastal road and drainage assets facing the highest proportional increases. The study demonstrates that early adaptation investment in flood-resilient infrastructure specifications yields a benefit-cost ratio of 2.8 relative to reactive maintenance under climate-degraded conditions. Unlike prior studies that describe climate-infrastructure interactions qualitatively, this research produces quantified maintenance cost projections by asset type and climate scenario. The modelling framework developed is scalable for national application. Keywords: climate change, infrastructure maintenance costs, Niger Delta, life cycle costing, adaptation