Why We Are So Bullish on the Linear Asset Sector

Atmospheric river events substantially elevate landslide risk, which is a leading cause of damage to linear assets such as roads, railways, and pipelines. These intense, prolonged storms saturate soils, increasing slope instability and the likelihood of catastrophic failures along critical infrastructure corridors.

Roads, railroads, and pipelines sit at the backbone of modern economies, quietly moving people, goods, energy, and water itself. Yet over the coming decade, these linear assets will face some of the largest and most complex water-related risks of any asset class. At the same time, that very exposure is why we are so bullish on the sector. Where risk is widespread, persistent, and poorly managed, opportunity follows.

Why Infrastructure Investors Must Watch Water Risks to Linear Assets

Flooding, erosion, and soil saturation are escalating threats to linear assets—roads, railways, and pipelines. Climate change is turning rare water events into recurring hazards, driving up repair costs and operational disruptions. Infrastructure investors who fail to account for these risks face reduced returns, while those who build resilience into their portfolios can protect value and gain a strategic advantage.

Water-related risks can be even more costly than wind or extreme temperatures. First, water can undermine foundations and embankments, leading to full structural failures. Second, it corrodes buried pipelines and metal components, accelerating maintenance and replacement costs. Third, flooding and washouts often disrupt entire transportation or utility networks, causing cascading operational and revenue losses that extreme heat or wind rarely match.

Flooded rivers can wash out tracks and bridges, putting railroads at serious risk.

Linear Assets Face More Water Risk Than Any Other Asset Class

Unlike point assets such as buildings, plants, or ports, linear infrastructure stretches across hundreds or thousands of miles. Every mile crosses different watersheds, soil conditions, climates, and regulatory regimes. A single road or pipeline may encounter rivers, floodplains, deserts, coastal zones, and urban drainage systems along its length. This geographic footprint makes linear assets uniquely vulnerable: water risk is not an exception—it is inevitable.

As climate change accelerates hydrologic extremes, linear assets become exposed to compound risk. A failure in one location can cascade into system-wide disruption, halting freight, fuel supply, or commuter mobility far beyond the point of impact. No other asset class combines such scale, exposure, and consequence.

Gas, oil, and water pipelines face major risks from water-related problems. Flooding, soil saturation, and erosion can corrode pipes, undermine supports, and trigger leaks or ruptures, threatening both service and safety.

Flooding and Inundation Risk

Flooding is the most visible water risk facing roads, rail, and pipelines. Increased intensity of rainfall overwhelms drainage systems, submerges roadways, washes out rail beds, and exposes buried pipelines. Riverine flooding, flash floods, and coastal storm surge now occur with greater frequency and severity, turning historically “safe” corridors into chronic trouble spots.

For linear assets, flooding isn’t just about water over the surface. Prolonged saturation weakens subgrades, compromises ballast stability, and accelerates long-term degradation. What looks like a temporary disruption often becomes a structural problem that demands repeated intervention.

Erosion, Scour, and Subsurface Instability

Erosion and scour are among the most damaging—and least visible—water risks. Moving water strips away soil around bridge abutments, culverts, embankments, and pipeline supports. Rail corridors and road foundations depend on stable subsurface conditions, yet changing flow patterns increasingly undermine that stability.

For pipelines, subsurface erosion can expose previously buried segments, increasing rupture risk and regulatory scrutiny. These failures rarely announce themselves in advance, making detection and prediction critical. As precipitation volatility increases, so does the rate of unseen degradation.

Road infrastructure is highly vulnerable to water-related damage. Flooding, erosion, and saturated soils can wash out pavement, weaken embankments, and cause costly closures and repairs.

Drainage and Culvert Failure

Linear assets rely on thousands of small drainage structures to function safely. Culverts, ditches, and stormwater crossings are often undersized for today’s rainfall patterns, let alone tomorrow’s. When these systems fail, water backs up, overtops infrastructure, or redirects flow in destructive ways.

This category of water risk is especially pernicious because it’s distributed. A single failed culvert can shut down an entire corridor, yet these components are rarely monitored at scale. Climate change turns what were once maintenance issues into systemic vulnerabilities.

Drought, Shrink-Swell, and Ground Movement

Water risk isn’t limited to too much water. Drought introduces its own category of threats. Extended dry periods cause soils to shrink, crack, and settle, destabilizing roadbeds, rail tracks, and buried pipelines. In clay-rich regions, cycles of drought and rewetting create “shrink-swell” dynamics that accelerate fatigue and misalignment.

Pipelines are particularly sensitive to ground movement, while rail systems suffer from track deformation that affects safety and speed. As droughts intensify and persist, these risks become structural rather than episodic.

Rockslides, often triggered when water seeps beneath unstable rocks, pose a serious threat to infrastructure. With climate change driving more intense rainfall, these events are becoming increasingly frequent, blocking roads, damaging bridges, and disrupting transportation.

Why This Risk Creates Opportunity

We are bullish on linear assets precisely because their water risk is inescapable, measurable, and growing. Owners and operators cannot relocate a highway or rail line out of harm’s way. They must manage risk across vast geographies with limited visibility and aging tools. This creates demand for better monitoring, predictive analytics, climate-aware design, and adaptive maintenance strategies.

No other asset class combines such extensive exposure with such high economic importance. As water risk becomes the dominant driver of performance, downtime, and cost, solutions that help linear assets anticipate and adapt will move from “nice to have” to mission-critical.

The Bottom Line

Roads, railroads, and pipelines face multiple categories of water risk—flooding, erosion, drainage failure, and drought-driven ground movement—each intensified by climate change. Their sheer footprint makes them uniquely vulnerable, with every mile presenting a different challenge. That same reality makes the linear asset sector one of the most compelling places to invest. Where complexity and necessity intersect, innovation and value inevitably follow.