Potential Impacts of Climate Change on U.S. Transportation Special Report 290 (2008) / Chapter Skim
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6 Summing Up
6 Summing Up
Pages 189-208
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From page 189... ...
The committee's consensus position was informed by the five papers commissioned for this study; the 1-day conference held midway through the study to obtain the input of a broad range of transportation academicians and practitioners, climate scientists, and other experts; reviews of previous studies that examined the potential impacts of climate change on transportation, with a focus on adaptation strategies; numerous briefings on a wide range of relevant topics presented at committee meetings; and the committee's own expertise and judgment. The chapter is organized on the basis of a series of questions that guided the committee's thinking.
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From page 190... ...
Projections of future climate are often depicted as gradual changes, such as the rise in global temperatures or in sea levels projected over this century. However, climate changes are unlikely to be experienced in such a smooth manner because human-induced changes will be amplified in some years by naturally fluctuating conditions, reflected in potentially sudden and dramatic changes at the regional or local level, where transportation infrastructure is located.
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From page 191... ...
The Atlantic and Gulf Coasts are particularly vulnerable because they have already experienced high levels of erosion, land subsidence, and loss of wetlands. Their vulnerability to the storm surges and wave action that accompany strong tropical storms was amply demonstrated during the 2005 hurricane season.
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From page 192... ...
Inventorying transportation assets essential to maintaining network per formance to determine their potential vulnerability to projected climate changes is a sensible first step. Information about projected climate changes is currently available from climate scientists for large subconti nental regions -- a scale more relevant than global projections for regional and local transportation infrastructure.
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From page 193... ...
Many transportation facilities, such as bridges, large culverts, and rail and port facilities, are designed with long service lives and help shape development patterns that, once in place, are difficult to change. Thus, transportation planners and engineers should consider how projected climate changes in their regions might affect these facilities.
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From page 194... ...
In general, however, transportation decision makers have a long way to go to take full advantage of quantitative, risk-based approaches that incorporate uncertainty and probabilistic assessments in making invest ment and design decisions. Recommendation 3: Transportation planners and engineers should use more probabilistic investment analyses and design approaches that incorporate techniques for trading off the costs of making the infrastructure more robust against the economic costs of failure.
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From page 195... ...
Following the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, the California Department of Transportation developed a risk-based approach for analyzing the vulnerability of highway bridges statewide to earthquakes and their criticality to the network to make it possible to determine investment priorities for retrofitting and replacement. The program established a higher performance standard for 750 structures to protect the investment in these major facilities and ensure that these vital transportation lifelines would remain in service after a major seismic event to provide access for emergency responders.
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From page 196... ...
found that while the scientific understanding of climate change has made great progress, the use of that knowledge to support decision making and formulate mitigation and adaptation strategies is much less well devel oped. Climate change is understood with greatest confidence as a global or continental phenomenon, while transportation planners as well as other decision makers need local and regional climate projections.
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From page 197... ...
; greater use of scenarios that include climate change in the development of longrange regional transportation plans to pinpoint likely vulnerabilities (e.g., areas susceptible to sea level rise, aggravated by storm surge) and ways to address them; and better transportation network models for examining the systemwide effects of the loss of critical transportation infrastructure links.
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From page 198... ...
Likewise, hurricane planning has become a major focus of transportation operations in the Gulf Coast states, where transportation providers are forging close rela tionships with emergency responders to handle severe weather events. As climate changes induce new extremes (e.g., more intense storms, more intense precipitation)
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From page 199... ...
Development of more heat-resistant materials could help protect pavements and some rail facilities, in particular, from the adverse impacts of projected temperature extremes. Recommendation 7: Federal and academic research programs should encourage the development and implementation of monitoring technologies that could provide advance warning of pending failures due to the effects of weather and climate extremes on major transportation facilities.
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From page 200... ...
Recommendation 8: The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) , the Federal Highway Administration, the Association of American Railroads, the American Public Transportation Association, the American Association of Port Authorities, the Airport Operators Council, associations for oil and gas pipelines, and other relevant transportation professional and research organizations should develop a mechanism to encourage shar ing of best practices for addressing the potential impacts of climate change.
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From page 201... ...
Are infrastructure components sufficiently strong to withstand the forces of larger and more frequent storm surges and more powerful wave action, the effects of which were vividly demonstrated when Hurricane Katrina simply lifted bridge decks off their supporting structures? Developing standards is a time-consuming consensus process that typically involves professional organizations in an extensive research and testing program.
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From page 202... ...
If a similar program is to be launched to address climate change in a timely manner, it should be initiated soon. Recommendation 10: In the short term, state and federally funded transportation infrastructure rehabilitation projects in highly vulnerable locations should be rebuilt to higher standards, and greater attention should be paid to the provi sion of redundant power and communications systems to ensure rapid restoration of transportation services in the event of failure.
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From page 203... ...
Transportation planners currently consider expected land use patterns when forecasting future travel demand and infrastructure needs. However, they rarely question whether such development is desirable, much less what effects climate change might have on the provision and development of infrastructure in vulnerable locations.
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From page 204... ...
Current surface transportation legislation encourages such collaboration. During reauthorization, requiring transportation planners to both consider climate change and collaborate with land use planners in the preparation of public-sector, long-range plans could go a long way toward making these issues more visible.
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From page 205... ...
Climate change may trigger more intense storms, and sea level rise will extend the scope of flood damage in some special flood hazard areas. FEMA and congressional oversight committees should reevaluate the risk reduction effectiveness of the National Flood Insurance Program in light of these projected changes.
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From page 206... ...
; regional and multistate emergency response agreements; and state-mandated regional authorities, such as those responsible for air quality improvement. One could imagine the emer gence of similar arrangements to address, for example, the impact of sea level rise on coastal real estate and infrastructure in the tristate New York area or other coastal areas, or the effects of drought on shipping along inland waterways, or the impact of hurricanes in the Gulf Coast region.
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From page 207... ...
Federal planning regulations should require inclusion of climate change in the development of long-range plans and collaboration between transportation and land use agencies (Recommendation 12) ; state and federally funded transportation infrastructure rehabilitation projects in highly vulnerable locations should be rebuilt to higher standards until design standards can be assessed more broadly in light of climate change (Recommendation 10)
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From page 208... ...
; developing climate data and decision support tools that incorporate the needs of transportation decision makers (Recommendation 5) ; developing and implementing monitoring technologies for major transportation facilities to provide advance warning of pending failures due to severe weather events and climate extremes (Recommendation 7)
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