The Great O.R. Tambo International Airport Flood: Dealing with the Harsh Realities of Climate-induced Extreme Weather Events

Abstract

Climate-related extreme flooding at airports is commonly associated with sea level rise. However, more and more airport floods occur on these tourism assets, even inland. On November 9 2016, the Oliver Reginald (OR) Tambo International Airport experienced one of its worst floods, and the impact of this event deserves comprehensive documentation. A systematic review was done, and PRISMA augmented content analysis to ascertain the gaps and depth covered by research on OR Tambo International Airport floods. Twenty-four studies and ten grey literature, like newspapers and websites, focused on OR Tambo International Airport and floods in November 2016. The result reflects that severe storm flooded access roads to OR Tambo International Airport. The floods affected Aviation activities, including flight delays, fuelling and maintenance. With such extreme weather events likely to recur, this study explores the documented impact of this great OR Tambo International flood on air and on-the-ground traffic, human capital, management interventions, and other remedial measures to deal with such weather extremes. The present study only presented gaps in the extant literature, which are to be addressed by the ongoing empirical research, leading to limiting the limitation around the absence of empirical study.

Keywords

• climate-related extreme floods
• or tambo international airport
• airport
• extreme-weather events
• aviation