Issue cover

Vol. 9 No. 1 (2026): Volume 9, Issue 1 (2026)

View Issue TOC

Optimization of Bridge Placement AlongPetroleum Logistics Corridors Using GISand Network Analysis in South Sudan

Optimization of Bridge Placement Along
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19493998
Published: April 10, 2026

Abstract

The petroleum logistics network of South Sudan spans 1,865 km of classified roads crossing more than 58 river channels, of which only 17 (29%) are currently bridged. During the annual wet season, unbridged crossings render 340–520 km of oil access road intermittently impassable, disrupting crude oil tanker operations for 15–120 days per year and imposing estimated economic losses of USD 68–140 million annually. Determining which of the remaining 41 crossings to bridge, and in what sequence, given a constrained capital budget of USD 80–120 million, constitutes a complex spatial optimisation problem requiring integration of GIS-based multi-criteria analysis, graph-theoretic network performance modelling, and economic cost-benefit analysis. This paper presents a comprehensive GIS and network analysis framework to optimise bridge placement across five petroleum logistics corridors Juba–Malakal, Juba–Bentiu, Malakal–Renk, Bentiu–Wau, and Juba–Torit applying three complementary optimisation methods: the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) for site prioritisation, Pareto front analysis for budget-constrained portfolio selection, and betweenness centrality analysis for network-level impact quantification. Ten candidate bridge sites are evaluated against eight weighted criteria including traffic volume, flood hazard, river hydraulics, detour cost, geotechnical conditions, seismic hazard, social access equity, and environmental sensitivity. The TOPSIS-optimal sequence identifies the White Nile km 320 crossing (Route A) as the highest-priority investment, with an annual savings-to-cost ratio of USD 4.85M per USD 18.5M capital investment and a Criticality Index of 0.847. Implementation of the full five-priority portfolio generates a 31% reduction

Full Text:

PDF HTML Cover Image

Read the Full Article

The HTML galley is loaded below for inline reading and better discovery.

Open HTML Open PDF

How to Cite

Optimization of Bridge Placement Along (2026). Optimization of Bridge Placement AlongPetroleum Logistics Corridors Using GISand Network Analysis in South Sudan. African Journal of GIS and Spatial Analysis (Environmental/Earth Science, Vol. 9 No. 1 (2026): Volume 9, Issue 1 (2026). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19493998
EndNote (RIS) BibTeX

Keywords

GISnetwork analysisbridge placementpetroleum logisticsSouth SudanTOPSISPareto optimisationflood hazard

Research Snapshot

Desktop reading view
Language
EN
Formats
HTML + PDF
Publication Track
Vol. 9 No. 1 (2026): Volume 9, Issue 1 (2026)
Current Journal
African Journal of GIS and Spatial Analysis (Environmental/Earth Science

References

  • Amin, Md Al; Pan, Shidong; Zhang, Zhanmin (2022). Pavement maintenance and rehabilitation budget allocation considering multiple objectives and multiple stakeholders. International Journal of Pavement Engineering, 24(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/10298436.2022.2027941
  • Bertolini, Elisa Mariavittoria (2026). Temporal Value in MCDM. Lecture Notes in Intelligent Transportation and Infrastructure. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-95485-6
  • Bihon, Yilak Taye; Mohammed, Abdella Kemal; Ayele, Elias Gebeyehu (2025). Spatiotemporal analysis of land use and land cover using random forest in Google Earth engine: A case study of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam basin and reservoir, Upper Blue Nile, Ethiopia. Environmental Challenges, 21, 101311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envc.2025.101311
  • Unknown Author (1999). Ground-water and surface-water interactions along Rapid Creek near Rapid City, South Dakota. https://doi.org/10.3133/wri984214
  • Burachik, Regina S.; Kaya, C. Yalçın; Rizvi, Mohammed Mustafa (2021). Algorithms for generating Pareto fronts of multi-objective integer and mixed-integer programming problems. Engineering Optimization, 54(8), 1413-1425. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305215x.2021.1939695
  • Capshaw, Kendall M.; Padgett, Jamie E. (2025). A data-informed cascading consequence modeling framework for hurricane-induced petrochemical facility disruptions. Frontiers in Built Environment, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fbuil.2025.1418492
  • Lee, Yung-Jaan (2015). Climate Adaptation Planning in Coastal Areas of Chiayi County, Taiwan. Energy, Environmental & Sustainable Ecosystem Development. https://doi.org/10.1142/9789814723008_0071
  • Unknown Author (2023). Surficial geology, Amer Lake, Nunavut, NTS 66-H. https://doi.org/10.4095/306288
  • Espinet, Xavier; Rozenberg, Julie (2018). Prioritization of Climate Change Adaptation Interventions in a Road Network combining Spatial Socio-Economic Data, Network Criticality Analysis, and Flood Risk Assessments. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2672(2), 44-53. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361198118794043
  • Harrison, John; Galland, Daniel; Tewdwr-Jones, Mark (2021). Regional planning is dead: long live planning regional futures. Planning Regional Futures, 10-33. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003147008-2
  • Gallazzi, Alice; Molinari, Daniela; Ballio, Francesco; Credali, Marina; Tolone, Immacolata; Muratori, Simona; Asaridis, Panagiotis (2025). A Multi-Criteria Analysis procedure for the evaluation and classification of flood risk mitigation strategies. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-8205
  • Gamal, Yasser A. S.; Assaf, Kamal A.; Khallaf, Ali Hamdan; Abu-Zaid, Tarek S. (2026). Integrated fuzzy AHP-TOPSIS- bow tie approach for risk assessment and mitigation in irrigation canal rehabilitation projects: a case study in Egypt. Journal of Infrastructure Preservation and Resilience, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43065-025-00156-w
  • Gedefa, Tesfaye Fufa; Lemma, Tsegaye D.; Eshetu, Wondwossen Mindahun; Galety, Mohammad Gouse (2024). Python Library for Road Network Analysis in the Case of Debre Berhan City. Advances in Geospatial Technologies, 274-291. https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-1754-9.ch009
  • Gelderblom, A J; Sinclair, M (2024). The value of Association Rule Analysis in understanding serious and fatal road traffic crashes - a case study of the N4 toll road between 2015 and 2019. Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering, 65(4), 36-51. https://doi.org/10.17159/2309-8775/2023/v65n4a4
  • Ochmann, Jakub; Niewiński, Grzegorz; Łukowicz, Henryk; Bartela, Łukasz (2024). Potential for Repowering Inland Coal-Fired Power Plants Using Nuclear Reactors According to the Coal-to-Nuclear Concept. Energies, 17(14), 3545. https://doi.org/10.3390/en17143545
  • Xiaoqing Zhao; Qifa Yue; Jianchao Pei; Junwei Pu; Pei Huang; Qian Wang (2021). Ecological Security Pattern Construction in Karst Area Based on Ant Algorithm. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(13), 6863-6863. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18136863
  • Hallak, Jamil (2024). Optimizing construction supplier selection in conflict-affected regions: a hybrid multi-criteria framework. Operations Management Research, 17(4), 1270-1294. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12063-024-00505-0
  • Kuradusenge, Martin; Kumaran, Santhi; Zennaro, Marco (2020). Rainfall-Induced Landslide Prediction Using Machine Learning Models: The Case of Ngororero District, Rwanda. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(11), 4147. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17114147
  • Yuan Xue; Chao Qin; Baosheng Wu; Dan Li; Xudong Fu (2022). Automatic Extraction of Mountain River Surface and Width Based on Multisource High-Resolution Satellite Images. Remote Sensing, 14(10), 2370-2370. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14102370
  • Mayai, Augustino Ting (2022). War and Schooling in South Sudan, 2013-2016. Journal on Education in Emergencies, 8(1), 14. https://doi.org/10.33682/q16e-7ckp
  • Therborn, Göran (2022). Middle Classes of the World. Encyclopaedia of Marxism and Education, 467-482. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004505612_029
  • Meyer, Franz J.; Schultz, Lori A.; Osmanoglu, Batuhan; Kennedy, Joseph H.; Jo, MinJeong; Thapa, Rajesh B.; Bell, Jordan R.; Pradhan, Sudip; Shrestha, Manish; Smale, Jacquelyn; Kristenson, Heidi; Kubby, Brooke; Meyer, Thomas J. (2024). HydroSAR: A Cloud-Based Service for the Monitoring of Inundation Events in the Hindu Kush Himalaya. Remote Sensing, 16(17), 3244. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16173244
  • Frantz, Charles (1981). Fulbe Continuity and Change Under Five Flags Atop West Africa. Change and Development in Nomadic and Pastoral Societies, 89-115. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004477971_008
  • Unknown Author (2025). Administration of Flood Disasters Mitigation Strategies in Riverine Communities in Niger State, Nigeria. NIU Journal of Humanities, 10(4). https://doi.org/10.58709/niujhu.v10i4.2351
  • Lloyd-Williams, Huw (2019). The role of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) in public health economic evaluation. Applied Health Economics for Public Health Practice and Research, 301-311. https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198737483.003.0013
  • Bao, Ting; Liu, Zhen (2016). Vibration-based bridge scour detection: A review. Structural Control and Health Monitoring, 24(7), e1937. https://doi.org/10.1002/stc.1937
  • Li, Gang; Zhu, Shunying; Wang, Hong; Chen, Qiucheng; Wu, Jingan (2024). Resilience evaluation model of urban road network based on betweenness centrality. Eighth International Conference on Traffic Engineering and Transportation System (ICTETS 2024), 143. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3054644
  • Reich, Juri; Kinra, Aseem; Kotzab, Herbert; Brusset, Xavier (2020). Strategic global supply chain network design – how decision analysis combining MILP and AHP on a Pareto front can improve decision-making. International Journal of Production Research, 59(5), 1557-1572. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2020.1847341
  • Reis, Rodrigo S; Salvo, Deborah; Ogilvie, David; Lambert, Estelle V; Goenka, Shifalika; Brownson, Ross C (2016). Scaling up physical activity interventions worldwide: stepping up to larger and smarter approaches to get people moving. The Lancet, 388(10051), 1337-1348. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(16)30728-0
  • Santos, Dayvid Souza; Primo, Rilton Gonçalo Bonfim; de Araújo Lima, Ana Paula Henriques Gusmão; Schramm, Vanessa Batista; Rodrigues, Yan Valdez Santos; Belderrain, Mischel Carmen Neyra; Pessoa, Fernando Luiz Pellegrini; de Araújo Kalid, Ricardo; Callefi, Mario Henrique Bueno Moreira (2023). Evaluation of the social impacts of small- and medium-sized biorefineries in the Southern Coast Territory of Bahia considering the selection of technologies for bioactives: an MCDA model. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 26(5), 13117-13137. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-04112-0
  • John Salon; David T. Lodowski; Krzysztof Palczewski (2011). The Significance of G Protein-Coupled Receptor Crystallography for Drug Discovery. Pharmacological Reviews, 63(4), 901-937. https://doi.org/10.1124/pr.110.003350
  • Wang, Zhiyuan; Rangaiah, Gade Pandu (2017). Application and Analysis of Methods for Selecting an Optimal Solution from the Pareto-Optimal Front obtained by Multiobjective Optimization. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 56(2), 560-574. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.6b03453
  • Martino Pesaresi; Daniele Ehrlich; Ferri Stefano; Aneta J. Florczyk; Sérgio Freire; F. Haag; Matina Halkia; Andreea Julea; Thomas Kemper; Pierre Soille (2015). Global Human Settlement Analysis for Disaster Risk Reduction. The international archives of the photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information sciences/International archives of the photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information sciences, XL-7/W3, 837-843. https://doi.org/10.5194/isprsarchives-xl-7-w3-837-2015
  • Yu, Xiangmin; Chen, Dewei (2021). Design and construction of the Tahya Misr cable-stayed bridge in Cairo, Egypt. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Civil Engineering, 174(2), 79-88. https://doi.org/10.1680/jcien.20.00014
  • Xinyu Wang; Xiangfeng Meng; Ying Long (2022). Projecting 1 km-grid population distributions from 2020 to 2100 globally under shared socioeconomic pathways. Scientific Data, 9(1), 563-563. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01675-x
  • Houjun Jiang; Guangcai Feng; Teng Wang; Roland Bürgmann (2017). Toward full exploitation of coherent and incoherent information in Sentinel‐1 TOPS data for retrieving surface displacement: Application to the 2016 Kumamoto (Japan) earthquake. Geophysical Research Letters, 44(4), 1758-1767. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016gl072253
  • Ailing Zeng; Muxi Chen; Lei Zhang; Qiang Xu (2023). Are Transformers Effective for Time Series Forecasting?. Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 37(9), 11121-11128. https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v37i9.26317
  • Hyung Won Chung; Le Hou; Shayne Longpre; Barret Zoph; Yi Tay; William Fedus; Eric Li; Xuezhi Wang; Mostafa Dehghani; Siddhartha Brahma; Albert Webson; Shixiang Gu; Zhuyun Dai; Mirac Süzgün; Xinyun Chen; Aakanksha Chowdhery; Castro-Ros, Alex; Pellat, Marie; Robinson, Kevin; Valter, Dasha; Sharan Narang; Gaurav Mishra; Adams Yu; Vincent Zhao; Yanping Huang; Andrew M. Dai; Hongkun Yu; Slav Petrov; Ed H.; Jeff Dean; Jacob Devlin; Adam Roberts; Denny Zhou; Quoc V. Le; Jason Lee (2022). Scaling Instruction-Finetuned Language Models. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2210.11416
  • Jana Lipková; Richard J. Chen; Bowen Chen; Ming Y. Lu; Matteo Barbieri; Daniel Shao; Anurag Vaidya; Chengkuan Chen; Luoting Zhuang; Drew F. K. Williamson; Muhammad Shaban; Tiffany Chen; Faisal Mahmood (2022). Artificial intelligence for multimodal data integration in oncology. Cancer Cell, 40(10), 1095-1110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccell.2022.09.012
  • Mark Chen; Jerry Tworek; Heewoo Jun; Qiming Yuan; Henrique Pondé de Oliveira Pinto; Jared Kaplan; Harrison Edwards; Yuri Burda; Nicholas Joseph; Greg Brockman; Alex Ray; Raul Puri; Gretchen Krueger; Michael Petrov; Heidy Khlaaf; Girish Sastry; Pamela Mishkin; Brooke Chan; Scott Gray; Nick Ryder; Mikhail Pavlov; Alethea Power; Łukasz Kaiser; Mohammad Bavarian; Clemens Winter; Philippe Tillet; Felipe Petroski Such; Dave Cummings; Matthias Plappert; Fotios Chantzis; Elizabeth A. Barnes; Ariel Herbert-Voss; William H. Guss; Alex Nichol; Alex Paino; Nikolas Tezak; Jie Tang; I. Babuschkin; Suchir Balaji; Shantanu Jain; William S. Saunders; Christopher Hesse; Andrew N. Carr; Jan Leike; Joshua Achiam; Vedant Misra; Evan Morikawa; Alec Radford; Matthew M. Knight; Miles Brundage; Mira Murati; Katie Mayer; Peter Welinder; Bob McGrew; Dario Amodei; Sam McCandlish; Ilya Sutskever; Wojciech Zaremba (2021). Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Code. arXiv (Cornell University). https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2107.03374