A GIS ‐Based Method to Prioritize Railway Links for Climate Resilience Planning Based on Operational Exposure

ABSTRACT Conventional climate risk assessments typically consider hazard, exposure, and vulnerability dimensions, but often restrict exposure to spatial hazard intersections, neglecting the operational intensity of infrastructure. This study proposes a geographic information systems (GIS)‐based framework that uses operational exposure derived from freight and passenger flows as the primary metric for network prioritization. By integrating origin–destination matrices with spatial infrastructure topologies, the methodology calculates distinct exposure profiles. An adjustment factor is introduced for high‐speed rail (HSR) corridors to reflect their strategic importance. Application to the Turkish national railway network demonstrates that peak operational exposure is spatially clustered along primary HSR segments (e.g., Ankara‐Eskişehir), which mathematically surpass maximum‐capacity conventional logistics arteries. The proposed data‐driven spatial framework provides a scalable and transferable approach for preliminary network screening, establishing an operational baseline for subsequent integration with probabilistic climate hazard and infrastructure vulnerability assessments.