One or several simultaneous changes in climate, e.g. hotter seasons, more extreme precipitation events and sea level rise could severely impinge on road performance in Low Income Countries (LICs). Failure to account for such impacts in future road design, maintenance and operating planning and protocols, could cause accelerated road deterioration and higher road use costs, thereby severely constraining socio-economic development.

To address this, the 18-month CRISPS multi-disciplinary research project aims to demonstrate the technical and economic suitability of three global best-practice road surfacing technologies for the range of traffic and environmental conditions of high volume roads that typically currently occur in LICs and those that are predicted to occur in the future.  The technologies evaluated are Modified Epoxy Chip Seals (MECS), Modified Epoxy Asphalt Surfaces (MEAS) and Fibre Mastic Asphalt (FMA) respectively. The technologies are a result of many years of research in New Zealand (MECS and MEAS) and Malaysia (FMA) where their in-situ performance has been demonstrated through trials and they are as a result routinely used in service.