National Academies Press: OpenBook

Transportation Resilience: Adaptation to Climate Change (2016)

Chapter: White Paper PresentationTransportation Resilience: Adaptation toClimate Change and Extreme WeatherEvents

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Suggested Citation:"White Paper PresentationTransportation Resilience: Adaptation toClimate Change and Extreme WeatherEvents." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. Transportation Resilience: Adaptation to Climate Change. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24648.
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Page 10
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Suggested Citation:"White Paper PresentationTransportation Resilience: Adaptation toClimate Change and Extreme WeatherEvents." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2016. Transportation Resilience: Adaptation to Climate Change. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24648.
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Page 11

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10 t r a n s p o r t a t i o n r e s i l i e n c e adaptive strategies that can be used to reduce impacts in the first place and the adaptive strategies that can be employed to reduce the consequences of impacts. Wuebbles concluded by providing a sense of hope, noting that the future depends on how people act to limit climate change. He noted that adaptation is not a choice—the choice is whether to adapt proactively or respond to the consequences. Adaptation requires a paradigm shift, focusing on managing risks. It is possible to draw on the long history of responding to changing conditions in facing the challenges of climate change. He suggested that planning for the future ensures we will all get there safely, together. white PaPer Presentation transPortation resilienCe: adaPtation to Climate Change and extreme weather events Lori Tavasszy Lori Tavasszy summarized his and Gerry Schwartz’s white paper, “Transportation Resilience: Adaptation to Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events,” pre- pared for the symposium. He reviewed the white paper objective and discussed climate change and its impact on the transport system, the current state of adaptation in the EU and the United States, and critical issues for fur- ther discussion. He recognized Schwartz, his coauthor, who was not able to attend the symposium. [The white paper is provided in Appendix A.] Tavasszy noted that the white paper objective was to set the stage for the discussion of research and develop- ment needs at the symposium. The white paper, along with the three case scenarios, provides background information for the discussion in the breakout groups and the identification of challenges, management strate- gies, and areas for further research. He reviewed potential climate-related changes, including changes in temperature, sea level, precipita- tion, storms, hurricanes, and mist. He noted that there is uncertainty associated with the extent of these changes and their impact on the transportation system. Tavasszy described some of the uncertainty factors associated with climate change and more extreme weather events. He noted that the severity of climate change depends on GHG emissions, which are influenced by the use of personal vehicles and other human behavior. The use of electric and automated vehicles, shared mobility services, and new technologies may result in changes in GHG emissions. He noted that assessing the impacts on society, including the physical impacts and the impacts on well-being and sustainability, is also uncertain. He suggested that the potential impacts will be influenced by many factors and often have a cascading effect. Tavasszy described some of the system effects related to different types of extreme weather events. For exam- ple, high winds may cause trees to fall on the roadway and overturn trucks, which may cause road closures and increased congestion. He noted that systemic effects may also occur with other infrastructure elements, which may result in unexpected effects on and relationships between transport and other systems. He commented that the transport system cannot be viewed in isolation. Climate Changes • Extreme precipitation • Rising sea levels • Temperature spikes Adaptive Strategies to Reduce Impacts • Retrofit facilities • Relocate facilities • Upgrade stormwater drainage facilities • Build new facilities to climate-ready standards • Protect existing infrastructure • Incorporate climate change into maintenance cycles Adaptive Strategies to Reduce Consequences • Reroute freight and passenger flows • Shift to alternative modes • Land use regulations relating to development in vulnerable areas • Evacuation and contingency strategies • Building in network flexibility • Traveler information systems • Rapid rebuilding of damaged facilities • Improved air traffic management Impacts on Transportation • Roadway flooding • Damage to or destruction of bridges • Pavement and rail buckling • Subway flooding • Seaport and airport flooding • Slope failures • Curtailment of barge operations Consequences • Freight traffic disrupted for days or weeks • Power plants, water facilities, homes, businesses, hospitals cut off • Passenger travel delays • Higher transportation costs for government, businesses, and households • Evacuation of urban areas FIGURE 2 Role of adaptive strategies and tactics in reducing impacts and consequences (1).

11o p e n i n g p l e n a r y s e s s i o n The white paper includes a review of literature on the state of adaptation in the United States and the EU. He noted that the literature includes adaptation research focusing on practical results. He reported that current research tends to focus on developing frameworks, analysis tools, and analyzing data. There is less research on developing and assessing actual implementation activities. He suggested there is interest on the part of practitioners in identifying the best models to use, data availability, adaptation approaches, and other practical topics. Tavasszy discussed some of the research and devel- opment needs identified in the literature. Integrative research, addressing specific substantive gaps, and con- ducting methodological work at the global and regional levels represent a few of the identified needs. Examples include developing costing and analysis methods for specific cases, assessing the impacts of the new high-end climate change scenarios, assessing the impacts on rural development and the resilience of cultural landscapes, and examining the need to manage agricultural and for- estry systems. Tavasszy reviewed the six issues included in the white paper that address achieving resilience. The first issue focuses on defining an acceptable level of resilience and identifying methods to realize this level. He noted that acceptable levels of resilience may vary by country and by area depending on risks, local conditions, and other factors. He suggested that developing objectives and standards for acceptable levels of resilience would be beneficial to help guide investments, approaches, and responses. The second issue discussed in the white paper is improving sense-and-respond capabilities. Tavasszy sug- gested that this issue focuses on moving from a predict- and-prepare capability on the part of agencies to a more proactive sense-and-respond capability. He noted that making this transition is not easy given the uncertain- ties associated with climate change and extreme weather events. Further, accomplishing the transition requires the involvement of all departments within transport agen- cies, whose members need to address adaptive policies, adaptive planning, adaptive asset management, and adaptive use. Tavasszy noted that the third issue in the white paper addresses system resilience. He commented that trans- port systems are more than just the sum of their indi- vidual parts. Some elements may be more important because of their vital economic role, the absence of alter- natives, heavy use, or critical function. He suggested that identifying critical functions between subsystems was important to prevent unwanted cascading or accumula- tion of failure effects. Developing and implementing new planning and engi- neering approaches represented the fourth issue discussed by Tavasszy. He suggested that new planning and gov- ernance models may be needed to better position agen- cies to be prepared for extreme weather events and to respond when they occur. Designing transport networks for resilience, developing new construction standards, and using new self-healing materials represent some of the engineering practices that may be needed to better respond to climate change and extreme weather events. The fifth issue described by Tavasszy was the use of risk-based transportation asset management. He noted that this approach is being used in the United States to build resilience into transportation assets to better manage external threats, including climate change and extreme weather events. He further noted that attention in Europe to these approaches has been mostly research, and integration into asset management practice would need to be the next step. A final issue highlighted by Tavasszy was the societal impacts of climate change and extreme weather events. He suggested that it was important to identify vulner- able user groups and methods to reduce their exposure to extreme weather events. In conclusion, Tavasszy summarized some ideas in the white paper for achieving greater resiliency. He noted that continuing to develop a better understanding of climate change science and extreme weather events, including vulnerable areas, frequency of events, and pos- sible impacts, was important. He also noted the difficul- ties of dealing with all the uncertainties associated with climate change. Connected to this, he raised the ques- tion of whether it is possible to define adequate resil- iency. Applying sound risk assessment and management approaches represents a way to deal with this uncer- tainty. Finally, he stressed the importance of considering the interdependencies between the networks of different modes and sectors. referenCe 1. U.S. Global Change Research Program. Climate Change Impacts in the United States. U.S. National Climate Assessment, 2014. http://nca2014.globalchange.gov.

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Transportation Resilience: Adaptation to Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events summarizes a symposium held June 16–17, 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. The fourth annual symposium promotes common understanding, efficiencies, and trans-Atlantic cooperation within the international transportation research community while accelerating transport-sector innovation in the European Union (EU) and the United States.

The two-day, invitation-only symposium brought together high-level experts to share their views on disruptions to the transportation system resulting from climate change and extreme weather events. With the goal of fostering trans-Atlantic collaboration in research and deployment, symposium participants discussed the technical, financial, and policy challenges to better plan, design, and operate the transportation network before, during, and after extreme and/or long-term climate events.

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