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Climate change research on transportation systems: Climate risks, adaptation and planning
Abstract
With the occurrence of more frequent and intense climate change events, transportation systems, including their infrastructure and operations become increasingly vulnerable. However, the existing research related to climate risks, adaptation and planning in the transport sector is still at an embryonic stage. Understanding such, this paper presents a critical review on climate risks, adaptation strategies and planning in the context of road and rail transportation systems. It aims to conduct a rigorous survey, to highlight any significant research gaps not addressed in past studies and to analyse current emerging topics to guide future directions. It critically dissects the selected papers by categorising them into several dimensions to reveal the status quo and potential challenges, including climate risk assessment, transport asset management, climate planning and policy, and adaptation of transport infrastructure to climate change. It will provide valuable references for future research and constructive insights and empirical guidance on climate adaptation, risk analysis, transport planning and other important relevant topics.
... on the transportation sector, as floods and sea-level rise have damaged transportation infrastructure, extreme heat has melted public transportation infrastructure and made it difficult to travel outside of a vehicle, and wildfires have forced the closure of transportation corridors (de Abreu et al., 2022;Lindgren et al., 2009;Oswald & Treat, 2013;T. Wang et al., 2020). ...
... 013;Braun & Fraser, 2022;Caprì et al., 2016). For example, on extremely hot days, pedestrians might choose longer routes if those routes are shaded (Melnikov et al., 2022). Yet climate adaptation plans in U.S. cities (Brousseau et al., 2024;Mullenbach & Wilhelm Stanis, 2022) and other countries worldwide (Aboagye & Sharifi, 2023Aguiar et al., 2018;T. Wang et al., 2020) have had a limited focus on active transportation. Additionally, underserved groups (including lowincome people and people of color) are less likely to have access to a car, and they might be particularly exposed to these vulnerabilities as their neighborhoods tend to include more heat-trapping surfaces and less green space than less di ...
... fforts to adapt to climate change, such as planting trees, building parks, installing green stormwater infrastructure, using different paving, and creating infrastructure to increase coastal resilience (Brousseau et al., 2024;de Abreu et al., 2022;Fields & Renne, 2021;Meerow & Keith, 2022;Nasrollahi et al., 2020;Taleghani, 2018;Turner et al., 2022;T. Wang et al., 2020;Wong et al., 2021). Research has also examined the barriers and facilitators of these climate adaptation efforts for transportation in Global North and Global South countries. ...
Despite efforts to mitigate climate change by promoting active travel, limited research has focused on climate adaptation for active transportation (CAAT) initiatives. To address this gap, we conducted a qualitative study based on interviews with 30 planning professionals to uncover what CAAT projects U.S. cities are implementing, their barriers, and their facilitators. We found that U.S. cities are increasingly implementing CAAT projects such as street trees and green stormwater infrastructure to address threats like extreme heat and pluvial flooding. Importantly, CAAT projects require collaborations between city departments (e.g., transportation and forestry). We also identified a complex network of barriers and facilitators shaping CAAT project implementation. Funding, politics, laws, and cross-department collaborations can be barriers and facilitators, and supportive (or unsupportive) politics and laws are strongly connected. Additionally, underserved communities face unique barriers to implementing CAAT projects, but recent facilitators such as dedicated funding have contributed to equitable investment.
... Establishing an index to measure seaport risk is vital in this regard (Laxe et al., 2012;Proag, 2014;Reggiani et al., 2015;Wang et al., 2020a;Phadikar, 2021). ...
... Developing resilience plans for seaports Laxe et al., 2012;Proag, 2014;Reggiani et al., 2015;Wang et al., 2020a;Phadikar, 2021 Working Together Collaboration among stakeholders to reduce recovery costs Ryan-Henry & Becker, 2020 ...
... Utilising renewable energy sources for seaport operations IPCC, 2011;Nguyen et al., 2022;Le et al., 2021;Nižetić et al., 2021;Wang et al., 2020a;Nguyen et al., 2020; Carbon Sequestration Implementing ecosystem approaches for carbon sequestration Agbelade and Onyekwelu, 2020 ...
This research has managed to close the gap between factors from the seaports that contribute to climate change. Seaports heavy dependency on fossil fuels and continued contribution of GHG have been significant. Increasing global trade will further enhance the contribution. Aligning with Sustainable development with goal of achieving zero carbon emissions by 2050, it is a must for seaports to look for alternatives to mitigating the factors that have continuously contributed to climate change. This research paper has highlighted a few approaches, such as green technologies, collaboration and others to guide through the transition period.
... Current analyses show that logistics service providers face significant climate risks (e.g., Sanchis et al., 2020). Neglecting or delaying the consideration of climate change mitigation and adaptation in corporate strategies could exacerbate the impacts of climate change or affect the success of climate change mitigation measures (Wang et al., 2020). Therefore, addressing combined strategies against climate mitigation and adaptation within the transport industry is essential. ...
... Research on climate mitigation in freight transport is well-advanced, addressing the measurement, management, and minimization of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (e.g., Taptich et al., 2016;Yan et al., 2021). In contrast, research on climate adaptation in the transport sector is still in the early stages of determining climate risks (Wang et al., 2020). Some studies on the impacts of climate change on major inland waterways (e.g., Zheng and Kim, 2017;Jonkeren et al., 2011), road transportation (e.g., Suarez et al., 2005), and rail transportation (e.g., Sanchis et al., 2020) can already be found. ...
... Some studies on the impacts of climate change on major inland waterways (e.g., Zheng and Kim, 2017;Jonkeren et al., 2011), road transportation (e.g., Suarez et al., 2005), and rail transportation (e.g., Sanchis et al., 2020) can already be found. However, the main focus of these studies is on physical infrastructure (Wang et al., 2020). The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (2017) also confirms the research gap in physical and transitory risks of transportation companies-especially in road, rail, and maritime freight. ...
Due to climate change, extreme weather events will increase in intensity, frequency, and duration in the future, negatively impacting logistics and transport systems. The threat of missing climate targets and a lack of climate adaptivity strategies in the transport sector leads to growing climate-related risks for transportation companies. The present paper provides a qualitative study exploring mitigation and adaptation strategies within the logistics sector. It analyzes the challenges transportation companies face in developing climate-neutral business models and adapting to the consequences of climate change. Our results show that logistics companies need to be more prepared for the consequences of climate change and, at the same time, insufficiently address climate change mitigation, making the sector more vulnerable to climate extremes in the future. A transformation framework is developed to assess the logistics firms' climate protection measures and climate adaptation strategies while highlighting existing development lags in climate mitigation and climate adaptation. Moreover, possible future strategies to combat climate risks in the sector are pathed.
... Although measures have been taken to address rainfall through drainage systems, temperature is the most significant environmental factor. Even though asphalt, used in road pavements, is sensitive to temperature [14][15][16][17][18][19], temperature is generally neglected in asphalt pavement design. In recent years, studies have been conducted to utilise temperature more effectively in asphalt pavement design, along with a few methods that consider temperature factors [20][21][22]. ...
... As mentioned in the introduction, asphalt is a temperaturesensitive material [14][15][16][17][18][19], exhibits viscoelastic behaviour at high temperatures [9,13,14,18]. In addition, temperature is one of the most important factors influencing asphalt performance in terms of wheel rutting damage, thermal cracks, fatigue, and other damages [23][24][25], with wheel rutting damage being particularly affected by temperature [26][27][28][29][30]. ...
This study examines the impact of temperature on the Cizre-Silopi highway's bituminous hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavement, focusing on rutting issues exacerbated by high temperatures, which can reach up to 50 °C in the region. Despite rapid deterioration, especially under heavy truck traffic, the HMA pavement exhibited significant stability and flow resistance loss (approximately 52 %) between 20 and 50 °C. Concrete (C25) and roller-compacted concrete (RCC) pavements displayed minimal strength reductions under the same temperature conditions. These findings suggest that given the prevalent high temperatures and heavy axle loads in the region, concrete (C25) or RCC should be prioritised over HMA for pavement construction to enhance resistance against wheel rutting and temperature-induced damage. The observed rutting issues, even in the initial summer post-construction, underscore the urgency of adopting more temperature-resistant materials for road infrastructure under specified climatic conditions. Key words: asphalt pavement, pavement damages, concrete road, roller-compacted concrete (RCC), temperature effect
... Compared to other transport infrastructure, railways are more vulnerable to disruptions due to limited rerouting options and capacity constraints (Mattsson & Jenelius, 2015). The uncertainty of future climate change and the consequent increases in severity and frequency of extreme weather events poses an additional challenge (Garmabaki, Odelius, Thaduri, et al., 2022;Wang, Qu, Yang, et al., 2020) and railways will need to adapt to the negative effects of climate change. Although the impacts of climate change will negatively affect the operation of railways, they play an important role in mitigating climate change by providing a low-carbon mode of transportation . ...
... Many studies that have quantified the impact of weather on railways have focused on the effect on operations such as train delays and network disruption (Brazil, White, Nogal, et al., 2017;Chen & Wang, 2019;Fabella & Szymczak, 2021;Ferranti, Chapman, Lee, et al., 2018;Greenham, Ferranti, Quinn, et al., 2020;Jaroszweski, Hooper, Baker, et al., 2015;Ludvigsen & Klaeboe, 2014;Ochsner & Palmqvist, 2022;Palmqvist, Olsson, Winslott, et al., 2017;Xia, Van Ommeren, Rietveld, et al., 2013;Zakeri & Olsson, 2018). Typically, these studies focus on specific regions and short-term impacts (Wang, Qu, Yang, et al., 2020) as well as specific combinations of weather variables and railway asset types, such as heat and track (Dobney, Baker, Chapman, et al., 2009. There are fewer studies that investigate a range of weather variables or a range of asset fault types, and even fewer that take a more holistic approach (Fisher, 2021). ...
In this paper, we estimate the vulnerability of railway infrastructure, switches, signals, tracks, and catenaries to different weather conditions, temperature, precipitation, snow depth, and wind speed across the entire Swedish railway network between 2006-2020. Using a method to quantify the fault rate we establish thresholds that can be useful for identifying areas of concern for operations. Results reveal that high or low temperatures have a noticeable impact on the fault rates for switches, tracks, and catenaries. High levels of precipitation are associated with higher fault rates across tracks and catenaries. Snow depth has an influence on fault rates for switches and tracks, and high wind speeds are associated with higher fault rates for tracks and catenaries. Finally, signals were found to be the most resilient asset. When comparing two dominant climate zones, notable differences were only found for track asset vulnerability.
... Penelitian ini mendukung pandangan tersebut dengan menunjukkan bahwa pengurangan kendaraan pribadi memberikan dampak terbesar, terutama di area dengan kepadatan lalu lintas tinggi seperti Rungkut, yang sesuai dengan studi Melkonyan (2024) yang menemukan bahwa kebijakan pembatasan kendaraan pribadi secara konsisten mengurangi emisi karbon. Selain itu, skenario optimalisasi manajemen lalu lintas yang diperlihatkan dalam hasil penelitian ini didukung oleh penelitian Wang (2020), yang menunjukkan bahwa perbaikan arus lalu lintas melalui teknologi cerdas dan pengaturan sinyal lalu lintas dapat mengurangi emisi kendaraan hingga 15%. Penurunan emisi di lokasi seperti Kenjeran menggarisbawahi efektivitas pendekatan ini, mencerminkan perlunya penerapan teknologi Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) dalam kebijakan transportasi lokal. ...
Due to the rapid growth of motorized vehicles, Surabaya City faces significant challenges related to traffic congestion and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This growth harms air quality and worsens climate change. Therefore, finding practical solutions to reduce GHG emissions in the transportation sector is important. One potential solution is the implementation of an Intelligent Transport System (ITS), which can improve traffic management and transportation efficiency. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of ITS implementation in reducing GHG emissions in Surabaya City. The research methods used include primary data collection through interviews and questionnaires and secondary data obtained from official reports and the implemented ITS system. The analysis was carried out by considering three main aspects: technical, environmental, and institutional, using the CLIMACT Prio method to determine the priority of appropriate mitigation actions. The study's results indicate that implementing an Intelligent Transport System (ITS) in Surabaya City can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through several main approaches. ITS optimizes traffic management by reducing congestion and idle time, reducing emissions. In addition, ITS increases the use of public transportation and supports the integration of environmentally friendly vehicles, such as electric vehicles, which reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
... Research by Ivanov et al. (2014), Dolgui et al. (2020), and Poo et al. (2021) underscores the need for resilient strategies to mitigate the effects of severe weather on supply chain operations. For example, Wang et al. (2020) identify key gaps in integrating climate adaptation strategies into transportation planning, including the lack of standardized decision-making tools, limited focus on long-term impacts, and misalignment between infrastructure lifespans and planning cycles. They further highlight the challenge posed by high uncertainty in climate projections, which complicates effective adaptation planning. ...
This study evaluates the resilience of Arctic supply chains to climate change by introducing the concept of supply chain serviceability. We define serviceability as a function of vulnerabilities in transportation nodes and modes under disruption threats, focusing on climate change impacts. Using climate data from Northern Canada, we assess serviceability under three Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs): SSP1-2.6 (low emissions), SSP2-4.5 (moderate emissions), and SSP5-8.5 (high emissions). We use Monte Carlo simulations to predict climate-induced impacts on six airports and three aircraft types. The detailed analysis of Yellowknife and Iqaluit airports and military aircraft validates our methodology. We include the results for additional airports and aircraft types in the e-companion. Our findings indicate average serviceability index declines of up to 51 permafrost degradation, extreme weather events, and infrastructure vulnerabilities. Our study provides actionable managerial insights and theoretical contributions to support supply chain resilience initiatives.
... Transportation challenges are a significant barrier to displaced families' access to essential services such as healthcare, education, and markets [86]. For instance, the recurring flooding of infrastructure facilities like roads and bridges along the Kabul River in the study area disrupts connectivity, leaving many communities isolated [35]. ...
Climate-induced migration is increasingly affecting communities, disrupting livelihoods, and intensifying socio-economic inequalities, particularly in disaster-prone regions. Despite the prevalence of recurring flood hazards, there remains limited research on the multi-dimensional impacts of migration particularly in socio-culturally sensitive and resource-constrained settings like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), Pakistan. This study seeks to bridge this gap by exploring the post-migration challenges of flood-affected communities in District Nowshera. Using a qualitative methodology, we conducted in-depth interviews with 25 diverse key informants. The study results revealed profound socioeconomic instability, inadequate access to essential services, and cultural disruptions. Key findings include significant challenges such as inadequate housing, the loss of traditional livelihoods, persistent financial hardships, health issues, and the breakdown of social support networks. Moreover, displaced families face marginalization and language barriers, which hinder integration into host communities, amplifying feelings of isolation and identity loss. Environmental degradation in resettlement areas further intensifies these challenges, prolonging poor living conditions and heightened vulnerability. To address these issues, the study recommends community-based interventions such as developing resilient, culturally appropriate housing, implementing targeted skills training programs to restore livelihoods, promoting climate-smart agricultural practices, and enacting inclusive social policies to promote integration and cohesion to address climate-induced migration in disaster-prone regions.
... While only one known study in this domain, the study [8], utilized CiteSpace for its analysis, the current research uniquely employs VOSviewer. This distinction is noteworthy as it introduces a different analytical perspective and potentially reveals new patterns, trends, and connections within the literature. ...
... Generally, transportation can be defined as the activity of moving people or goods from one location known as the origin location to another location referred to as the destination location, for a specific purpose and using appropriate transportation means (Alumur et al., 2021;Bruton, 2021;Ceder, 2021;Iyer, 2021;Rodrigue, 2020). The function of transportation as a means of transport is crucial, as it is influenced by various factors, including the geographical conditions of an area (Abdullah et al., 2020;Aminzadegan et al., 2022;Brand et al., 2021;Tong et al., 2022;Wang et al., 2020). Thus, transportation can support development in various sectors and encourage the advancement of science and technology in the area. ...
The rise of app-based transportation services has led to a shift in lifestyle from conventional to online, from shopping needs to public transportation orders and various other services. The study aimed to explore the legal uncertainty that currently exists in the regulation of apps-based transport services, as well as the barriers and efforts to create legal certainty in this context. This study analyzed the data through a qualitative approach, employing a combination of legal analysis and comparative methods. The results show that the lack of clear regulations regarding the use of two-wheeled vehicles as public transport creates significant weaknesses within the industry. The lack of fair competition principles in Indonesia is an important concern in the context of transportation regulation. This work provides valuable insights for policymakers, regulators, and stakeholders involved in the transportation sector, suggesting pathways for improving regulatory clarity and effectiveness. By analyzing these areas, future research could contribute valuable insights to aid policymakers in creating a more coherent, effective, and responsive regulatory environment that supports the sustainable growth of the app based transportation sector while ensuring the safety and protection of all parties involved. This research could include comparative analyses of successful regulatory models from other jurisdictions that have effectively harmonized their regulations while fostering innovation and consumer protection.
... These plans should focus on seaport recovery capacity and their ability to withstand extreme weather events, considering physical, social, and economic factors. Establishing an index to measure seaport risk is vital in this regard (Laxe, Seoane, and Montes 2012;Proag 2014;Reggiani, Nijkamp, and Lanzi 2015;Wang et al. 2020a). ...
Climate change (CC) and seaports share a cyclical relationship,
where climate impacts disrupt seaport operations, while seaport
activities contribute to CC. This research explores the contributing
factors from seaport activities, the impacts of CC on seaports and
strategies for mitigating these factors. A bibliometric analysis was
employed to present the findings statistically and numerically.
The results were summarised into themes, identifying the main
contributing factors, impacts and mitigation strategies. The
analysis reveals that the primary contributor to seaports is the
emission of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) from ships. The most
significant impacts of CC on seaports include increased exposure
to extreme weather events, changes in coastal dynamics, delays
and disruptions in seaport activities and damages to the
infrastructure. Mitigation strategies include adaptation measures,
investment choices and fostering collaboration and partnerships.
Seaport dependency on fossil fuels, coupled with increasing
global trade, exacerbates their contribution to CC. In alignment
with the Sustainable Development Goal of achieving net-zero
carbon emissions by 2050, the findings offer valuable managerial
insights for seaport operators seeking to adopt sustainable
practices.
... Combating pollutants requires putting safety first, finding solutions to electricity problems, and working together with other countries [25]. Wang et al. [26] illustrated the importance of combining road temperatures and ecological data and working together to improve robustness against weather hazards in the field of transportation. ...
Smog is a significant threat in Pakistan, having become a persistent issue in recent years. Excessive industrialization, increased reliance on fossil fuels, and increased automobile emissions have all led to epidemic levels of air pollution. Smog, or air pollution, can pose significant risks to humans and plants due to its harmful effects. Air pollution contributes to global health issues, including lung, breathing, and skin ailments. Pakistan, an undeveloped nation, is grappling with the detrimental effects of smog on various sectors such as health, ecology, transportation, and education. This study aims to employ multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methodologies to examine points of view on smog-related issues in Pakistan. The analysis will specifically concentrate on smog's health, economic, social, and ecological consequences, and the solutions employed to mitigate its effects. By employing various approaches, such as the Method based on the Removal Effects of Criteria (MEREC) objective weighting technique to determine the weights of each criterion and select the essential criteria, in the best-worst technique, pair-wise comparisons are performed on the best and worst criteria that are selected through MEREC. We have created a designated consistency ratio for the BWM to assess the reliability of comparisons. Entropy is an objective weighting technique used to calculate the weights of the best and worst criteria, and we employ the TOPSIS technique to determine the suitable alternative from a collection of choices by evaluating their resemblance to an ideal answer.
... A mudança climática acarreta vários desafios para o setor de transporte porque este sistema é altamente vulnerável às condições climáticas e meteorológicas [5], e aos seus impactos devido à ocorrência de eventos climáticos extremos, que influenciam a vida útil da infraestrutura e a segurança do transporte [6]. Isto enfatiza a necessidade de considerar a mudança climática em projetos regulares de infraestrutura de transporte, incluindo toda a vida útil destes ativos [7]. ...
Climate change poses several challenges for the transportation sector due to its high vulnerability to climate and weather conditions, as well as the impacts of extreme weather events. These events have a direct influence on the useful life of infrastructure and transportation safety. This underscores the need to incorporate climate change considerations into regular transportation infrastructure projects, highlighting the importance of conducting a comprehensive Climate Risk Analysis (CRA). This study aims to examine several key CRA methodologies in the transport sector, emphasizing their prominent advantages and identifying significant challenges. In addition, it highlights the importance of an integrated approach, highlighting the convergence of these methodologies. This provides a comprehensive overview of the essential elements to be considered in a CRA, highlighting the need for a holistic approach to dealing with the impacts of climate change in the transport sector.
... For LCL, the current research has mainly focused on the construction of low-carbon cities. One method, which evaluates the issue from the perspectives of the economy, society, and urban planning [14,15], involves a commitment to building an evaluation system for low-carbon cities based on statistical data; the other approach is to directly calculate carbon dioxide emissions based on the ecosystem [16,17], with different calculation methods for diverse scales of research. In large-scale national or provincial studies, scholars have often used statistical data for calculation [18][19][20][21]; however, in small-scale areas of prefecture-level cities and below, nighttime light data are often applied for inversion to obtain more accurate carbon emission data due to difficulty accessing refined statistical data [22][23][24][25]. ...
Global warming caused by massive carbon dioxide emissions can lead to a chain of ecological disasters. As one of the main sources of carbon emissions, transportation is of great significance, and the evaluation of its connections with carbon emissions is necessary to achieve "carbon neutrality". Taking Beijing as an example, this study evaluated traffic efficiency (TE) by utilizing principal component analysis and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation. Using the Tapio decoupling model and coupling coordination degree model, the corresponding relationship between urban low carbon level (LCL) and TE was explored. The results showed the following: (1) The total carbon emission (CE) level exhibited fluctuating variation from increasing to decreasing. The carbon emission intensity (CEI) continued to slow down, and the rapid growth of population density played a key role in low-carbon development. (2) The traffic operations continually showed a positive trend in development. TE increased from a step-like to a slow shape, until it declined in 2020 due to the pandemic. (3) TE and LCL both developed from low coordination to an extreme level of coordination. Per capita carbon emission (CEP) and TE presented an inverted U-shaped curve; meanwhile, with increases in TE, the decline in CEI slowed. In addition, the weak decoupling of TE changed to become strong, due to CE and CEP, and maintained a strong decoupling state from CEI. (4) There is a necessity for the rational planning of land use for transportation infrastructure, the encouragement of a combination of public and private transportation, and the strengthening of the maintenance of the relative infrastructure and the management of traffic behaviors to attain a win-win situation. The results provide a reference for optimizing the traffic structure to achieve "carbon neutrality".
... EWEs impose significant threats to transportation infrastructure systems due to their high uncertainty, massive scale, and destructiveness. The high frequency of EWEs has led to various risks and disruptions in urban transportation systems [9][10][11][12][13]. For example, a rainstorm washes out roadbed bridges, falling water tables cause the structural settlement of highway facilities, and heavy water accumulation on both sides of roads could block the traffic. ...
The frequent occurrence of extreme weather events (EWEs) in recent years has posed major hazards to urban transportation as well as socioeconomic impacts. A quantitative evaluation of the urban transportation resilience to minimize the impact caused by EWEs becomes critical to the rapid recovery of urban transportation after disasters. However, there is, generally, a lack of reliable data sources to monitor urban transportation performance under EWEs. This empirical study proposes a performance indicator (displacement) and quantitative method for evaluating the urban transportation performance under EWEs based on bus GPS trajectory datasets. Furthermore, the transportation resilience of it is quantified, and the variation is compared across temporal and spatial dimensions. The method is applied in a case study of Fuzhou, China, under rainstorm events. The results show that the Gulou and Jinan subareas have the highest transportation resilience during the yellow and red rainstorm warnings. By formulating an emergency plan and taking mitigation measures, the transportation performance in the Jinan subarea during the red rainstorm warning was improved by 36% compared to the yellow rainstorm warning. The empirical study not only fills the knowledge gap for quantifying the transportation resilience across the geographical boundary under rainstorm events, but also estimates the operation status of the road network. The results will help policymakers prioritize the resource distribution and develop effective policies or measures to further improve transportation resilience in the city.
... Weather and climate exert profound effects on daily activities [1][2][3][4][5][6], human health [7][8][9][10], economic prosperity [11][12][13], ecosystem equilibrium [14,15], and global governance [16][17][18]. Weather forecasting primarily concerns the prediction and characterization of short-term atmospheric conditions, whereas climate modeling focuses on long-term patterns and alterations in atmospheric parameters. ...
Accurate and rapid weather forecasting and climate modeling are universal goals in human development. While Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) remains the gold standard, it faces challenges like inherent atmospheric uncertainties and computational costs, especially in the post-Moore era. With the advent of deep learning, the field has been revolutionized through data-driven models. This paper reviews the key models and significant developments in data-driven weather forecasting and climate modeling. It provides an overview of these models, covering aspects such as dataset selection, model design, training process, computational acceleration, and prediction effectiveness. Data-driven models trained on reanalysis data can provide effective forecasts with an accuracy (ACC) greater than 0.6 for up to 15 days at a spatial resolution of 0.25°. These models outperform or match the most advanced NWP methods for 90% of variables, reducing forecast generation time from hours to seconds. Data-driven climate models can reliably simulate climate patterns for decades to 100 years, offering a magnitude of computational savings and competitive performance. Despite their advantages, data-driven methods have limitations, including poor interpretability, challenges in evaluating model uncertainty, and conservative predictions in extreme cases. Future research should focus on larger models, integrating more physical constraints, and enhancing evaluation methods.
... Finally, the impact of climate risks on transportation cannot be ignored. As more frequent and intense climate change events occur, transportation systems, including their infrastructure and operations, become increasingly vulnerable [50]. [10] found that complex and harsh climate will reduce the transportation efficiency of the road system. ...
... Finally, the impact of climate risks on transportation cannot be ignored. As more frequent and intense climate change events occur, transportation systems, including their infrastructure and operations, become increasingly vulnerable [50]. [10] found that complex and harsh climate will reduce the transportation efficiency of the road system. ...
... As concluded by Becker et al. (2012), most of the ports surveyed can withstand a storm with a 100-year return period without being damaged. However, if the rate of climate change accelerates, (Agrawal et al. 2007) and flow-alerting measures (Prendergast and Gavin 2014) leading to changes in return periods from 100 to 30 years, such adaptations would prove inadequate (Wang et al. 2020). For irreversible investments, Koetse and Rietveld (2012) recommended delaying the decisions on infrastructure maintenance until critical parameters concerning climate change had relative deterministic characteristics since maintenance design is a long-term process and incorrect decisions can be costly. ...
The service life and performance of the civil infrastructure are affected by the changing climate, and the changing climate features significant uncertainties that require rigorous consideration and quantification so they can be incorporated into the reliability assessment and risk management. A lack of quantification makes it difficult for the stakeholders, designers, and operators of the infrastructure to implement the appropriate decisions for mitigating the risks exacerbated by the changing climate. In this paper, a state-of-the-art review is conducted on existing studies in the literature concerning the influence of climate change on the risk assessment of concrete civil infrastructure. The review covers the following key aspects: (1) climate variables and the associated uncertainties; (2) frequency and intensity of natural hazards under various future climate scenarios; (3) the impact of climate change on the deterioration mechanisms of concrete structures; (4) the risk assessment methodology considering climate change; (5) climate-related multihazard risk assessment; and (6) adaptation strategies for the increasing risk of failure of civil infrastructure caused by climate change. The basic concepts, research development, and challenges concerning the impact of climate change on concrete infrastructure are comprehensively discussed. The review can benefit future research in the field of concrete infrastructure, especially on topics related to structural performance, durability, and risk assessment. Additionally, it will contribute to promoting appropriate adaptation planning and risk-based decision-making for the designers and operators of concrete infrastructure under the changing climate.
... Multiple studies tackle supply chain resilience from a theoretical perspective (T. Wang et al. (2020) provides an overview). Bret et al. (2021) summarize some key adaptation strategies from this body of work: strategic/safety stock, sourcing from multiple suppliers, dispersing suppliers and/or facilities, flexible transportation, back-up suppliers, and re-routing, among others. ...
... Early studies on transport and climate change have focused on reducing transport emissions because of the continued growth in passenger and freight activity outweighing gains from greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction measures (UNEP, 2020). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that aggressive policy intervention is needed to achieve a significant decrease in fuel carbon and energy intensity of transport modes, and to lower transport activity growth where possible (Wang et al., 2020). While such efforts to reduce transport GHG emissions are needed, action is also required to adapt transport infrastructure to current and future climate-related weather events. ...
Delivering sustainable and inclusive low-carbon transport is a critical to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Yet transport infrastructure is vulnerable to the effects of climate change in low-income countries in Africa. This paper explores the status of inclusive mobility and climate-resilient transportation in Africa, focusing on the perceptions and importance amongst key stake-holders, their incorporation into existing practices, and the priority given to making transport more inclusive and climate resilient. A nested scale approach was used that included an online continental survey of 136 respondents from 17 African countries; 2 country-level Focus Group Discussions in Uganda and Zambia; and city-level semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in Lusaka and Kampala using the Delphi method. In addition, an online spatial questionnaire (Maptionnaire) was used to locate where infrastructure improvements were needed, and two city workshops held in Lusaka and Kampala. Providing more active travel infrastructure was a priority for both government and non-governmental groups. This is not connected to climate resilience but to immediate priorities of road safety and health. Our surveys highlighted that climate resilience and inclusive mobility policies are in place, but poor implementation and lack of transparency were undermining outcomes. Upgrading existing infrastructure was more cost-effective and workable than developing new robust alternatives. Lack of knowledge exchange was limiting agencies efforts to tackle this growing challenge. The paper underscores the need to raise awareness of relevant options to improve the climate resilience of transport infrastructure and expand accessible mobility solutions to tackle issues of inclusion and equity in African cities.
... Further, as several studies demonstrate, it is also important to analyze the effects of climate change on the vulnerability of the infrastructure [10][11][12][13][14][15]. In this context, the development and renewal of infrastructure are critical challenges [16][17][18]. Building new tracks or maintaining existing ones is a resource-intensive activity, resulting in environmental damages that must be reduced. In the literature, several papers, as will be discussed in the following sections, deal with the sustainability of the rail track, but they are limited to certain components and/or phases of the service life. ...
Rail is expected to become the backbone of future mobility in the world as the cleanest and greenest high-volume transport. Rail generates the lowest CO2 emissions and energy consumption when in operation, with respect to the other transportation modes, but during construction and maintenance phases, its environmental impacts are significant and need to be carefully assessed and properly mitigated. This paper, through an extensive analysis of the recent literature, aims to provide a comprehensive framework of trends and challenges in railway sustainability, with particular attention paid to track and related materials and components, maintenance strategies, and methods of assessment of sustainability. The followed approach takes into consideration the lifespan of the track and the related main stages. The results show that: (i) several innovative sustainable materials have been introduced with significant environmental performances and limitations, mainly due to the lack of knowledge of long-term mechanical behavior; (ii) appropriate strategies of maintenance, supported by effective monitoring of the track conditions, can reduce negative effects on the environment and society and contribute to making this transportation mode greener; (iii) many devices for the automated detection of the track defects allow increasingly widespread and effective monitoring of the track and are essential means in overcoming the challenge of “smart rails”; and (iv) life cycle assessment (LCA) and circularity metrics are effective and indispensable tools in the decision-making process, since they help to quantify the potential environmental enhancement of different materials and solutions.
... Notwithstanding that sophisticated construction methodologies and material research in road design would increase the life span by up to 50 years (FICCI, 2019), future drainage systems need to be prioritized to mitigate the impact of climate change. There exist several studies focusing on the economic liabilities (Ortiz et al. 2021;Schweikert et al. 2014) on road infrastructure due to climate change and its structural resilience (Osheen and Singh Bisht 2022), but little impetus is given towards design frameworks and standardized solutions for practitioners to adopt impact of climate change on road drainage network (Wang et al. 2020). Road drainage networks are commonly designed using historical data while assuming extreme events are stationary. ...
Flooding is a major challenge for urban transportation systems, hindering access to essential services and jobs, especially for vulnerable populations. This study examines the impact of large flood extents on public transportation in Johnson and Linn counties, Iowa, United States, focusing on flood-prone bus routes, reduced service frequency, and access to job locations. Using Geographic Information System (GIS) tools, flood maps were integrated with General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data, while a demographic analysis highlighted the social vulnerability of the impacted communities. The findings reveal that transit disruptions during flooding are significant, with service losses totaling 526 visits during AM peak hours in Johnson County under a 500-year flood scenario. Job accessibility decreased by 11.5% in Linn County and 7.2% in Johnson County, disproportionately affecting low-income households and those without vehicles. These findings point to the significance of flood resilience improvement in transport planning, amongst measures such as more durable infrastructure and the use of adaptive routing or temporary transit services that would deliver fair access to inhabitants during extreme weather events.
Traffic congestion is a significant problem that is often faced by major cities around the world, including Makassar, which not only affects travel efficiency, but also negatively impacts the environment and the quality of life of residents; This study aims to optimize the urban transportation system by developing a computer-based traffic simulation model that is able to analyze and take into account various variables that contribute to congestion, such as traffic volume, vehicle movement patterns, and road geometry, where field data shows that the traffic volume at peak hours reaches 4200 smp/hour, with 65% of vehicles consisting of cars and motorcycles, the average speed of vehicles ranges from 15-20 km/h, the waiting time increases by 3 minutes when congestion occurs, CO2 emissions increase by 5 tons/day, and the level of Urip Sumoharjo road service which results in LOS E values and travel times increase by 10 minutes due to congestion; The results of this analysis are expected to provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of various transportation system optimization scenarios, including traffic signal adjustment, traffic direction regulation, and the addition of special lanes for specific vehicles, so as to reduce congestion and improve the efficiency of the overall urban transportation system, which is ultimately expected to improve the quality of life of Makassar residents and create a better environment sustainable for future generations.
Climate change analyses and subsequent communications largely focus on the global and continental spatial scales while most individuals experience climate change at the state and local scales. The aggregation of local weather data into broader spatial scales causes local trends to be lost or poorly represented. This study examines climate trends for the New England region of the United States from 1940 to 2019 at the local scale to determine how they match or differ from the trends described for the region from studies at broader spatial scales. An observed increase in precipitation and average minimum temperature matches previous studies when aggregated for the New England region, but mask local variation of the variables. The increase in precipitation is greatest in upland areas and some local areas have not observed increased precipitation. Average minimum temperature has broadly increased in the region, but not universally, and average temperature and maximum temperature show weaker increasing trends along with local variation. The variation of climate trends at the local scale highlights the need for clear communication of climate change that emphasizes the spatial scale of specific statements and the acknowledgment of different observed experiences at different scales.
The ongoing railway reforms in Ukraine are crucial for the country’s integration into the European Union’s transportation network. A major challenge lies in the difference in track gauge widths: Ukraine predominantly uses a 1520 mm gauge, while European countries utilize a 1435 mm gauge. This 85 mm difference presents significant logistical and operational barriers, hindering smooth cross-border trade and travel. The study examines the current state of Ukraine’s railway system, highlighting the urgent need for infrastructure modernization to meet European standards. Methods include a comparative analysis of Ukraine’s railway network with those of EU member states, focusing on integration challenges and potential solutions. Results indicate that aligning Ukraine’s railway with European standards could substantially enhance connectivity, reduce transit times, and foster economic growth. However, “Ukrzaliznytsia’s” slow adaptation to these necessary changes is a major roadblock. The study concludes that the construction of a standard-gauge railway linking Ukraine to the EU is vital not only for improving trade routes but also for supporting Ukraine’s broader political and economic aspirations towards EU membership. Circular economy principles, such as resource optimisation, extending the life cycle of existing infrastructure and reusing materials from dismantled railway facilities, can offer a cost-effective and sustainable approach. This infrastructural change will serve as a catalyst for deeper integration, strengthening Ukraine’s position within the European transportation network.
Ante la creciente complejidad y los múltiples desafíos inherentes a los proyectos de construcción, se evidencia la necesidad imperiosa de desarrollar un enfoque más holístico y robusto para la gestión de riesgos. Esta investigación surge con el objetivo de abordar no solo los impactos tradicionales como costo, tiempo, y probabilidad de ocurrencia, sino también de integrar criterios adicionales de calidad, seguridad, y sostenibilidad, factores que han sido históricamente subestimados en los análisis convencionales. En este contexto, la presente investigación se focaliza en la identificación y priorización de los riesgos más críticos asociados a proyectos de construcción, mediante un análisis de expertos de Perú, mediante la aplicación de un proceso analítico jerárquico. El objetivo central es establecer una jerarquización precisa de los riesgos, facilitando la toma de decisiones informada y estratégica.
The increasing frequency and severity of climate variability poses substantial challenges to the sustainability and reliability of transportation infrastructure worldwide. Transportation systems, vital to economic and social activities, are highly vulnerable to extreme weather, sea-level rise, and temperature fluctuations, which can disrupt their structural integrity, operational efficiency, and maintenance needs. The aim of this study is to explore the scholarly landscape concerning the effects of climate variability on transportation systems, analyzing 23 years of scientific publications to assess research trends. Utilizing bibliometric methods, this analysis synthesizes data from numerous scientific publications to identify key trends, research hotspots, influential authors, and collaborative networks within this domain. This study highlights the growing acknowledgment of climate variability as a crucial factor affecting the design, maintenance, and operational resilience of transportation infrastructure. Key findings indicate a notable increase in research over the last decade, with a strong focus on the effects of extreme weather events, sea-level rise, and temperature changes. The analysis also shows a multidisciplinary approach, incorporating perspectives from civil engineering, environmental science, and policy studies. This comprehensive overview serves as a foundational resource for researchers and policymakers, aiming to enhance the adaptive capacity of transportation systems to climate variability through informed decision-making and strategic planning.
To effectively protect against the increasingly pervasive effects of climate change, countries and cities around the world are tasked with formulating and implementing climate actions that effectively respond to the challenges ahead. However, choosing the optimal climate actions is complex, since it is necessary to consider many external impacts as early on as the planning phase. Our novel methodology uncovers and integrates into first-of-its-kind decision support framework the identified climate actions of 443 European cities (from 32 countries) and the city structure-related features that influence the basic success of strategy creation into a first-of-its-kind decision support framework. Depending on their budget, population density, development and energy consumption portfolio, the results highlight that the analyzed European cities need to adopt a different way of thinking. The research results lay the foundation for the decision support of evidence-based climate action planning and contribute towards strengthening the role of cities worldwide in the fight against climate change in the future.
This paper reviews current climate change projections for northern Canada and considers what these mean for infrastructure development in the proposed Canadian Northern Corridor (CNC). We focus on chokepoints along the corridor’s notional route and estimate future costs of infrastructure along the chokepoints. We draw upon climate change projections at the end of the century (2100) using information from several climate variables sourced on the CMIP6 and CMIP5 reports. Climate variables include means and extreme values for temperature, precipitation, wind and their indirect impacts on physical features: permafrost, freezing rain and wildfires. In terms of infrastructure costs, we investigate investment costs and the useful life of nine sectors within transportation, energy and buildings infrastructures. The findings of our analysis show that mean temperatures within the CNC area could increase by 10.9oC, and precipitation by 45 per cent by 2100. Climate change could create chokepoints along the CNC route, affecting key areas essential for transportation flow. Central regions of the corridor are projected to have a higher probability of receiving concomitant impacts on several chokepoints, including combined threats from the increasing frequency of wildfires, freezing rain and permafrost thaw. Adding a climatic layer to investment costs within CNC chokepoints can increase infrastructure costs by more than 101 per cent. Transportation engineering infrastructure, electric power infrastructure and the institutional buildings sectors are most likely to be impacted. Just considering a climate layer to current infrastructure increases costs by more than 7 billion for wildfires (especially BC) and more than $400 million for permafrost (especially Alberta and BC). Infrastructure built along the CNC route will need to be designed to remain functional under different climatic conditions that predominate today. Chokepoints will dictate how buildings and transportation infrastructure should be planned.
Infrastructure systems are particularly vulnerable to climate hazards, such as flooding, wildfires, cyclones and temperature fluctuations. Responding to these threats in a proportionate and targeted way requires quantitative analysis of climate risks, which underpins infrastructure resilience and adaptation strategies. The aim of this paper is to review the recent developments in quantitative climate risk analysis for key infrastructure sectors, including water and wastewater, telecommunications, health and education, transport (seaports, airports, road, rail and inland waterways), and energy (generation, transmission and distribution). We identify several overarching research gaps, which include the (i) limited consideration of multi-hazard and multi-infrastructure interactions within a single modelling framework, (ii) scarcity of studies focusing on certain combinations of climate hazards and infrastructure types, (iii) difficulties in scaling-up climate risk analysis across geographies, (iv) increasing challenge of validating models, (v) untapped potential of further knowledge spillovers across sectors, (vi) need to embed equity considerations into modelling frameworks, and (vii) quantifying a wider set of impact metrics. We argue that a cross-sectoral systems approach enables knowledge sharing and a better integration of infrastructure interdependencies between multiple sectors.
Flooding is a historical and intensifying challenge to transportation infrastructure and system performance and the interconnected systems it supports. Resilience programs attempt to meet the challenges flooding poses by adapting the infrastructure to withstand environmental pressures and preserve function during and after disasters. Current adaptation practices, however, often take the form of hard protective measures, implemented exclusively on transportation assets with little coordination between organizations. As a result, projects can be overly expensive, offer incomplete protection, and result in catastrophic failures across multiple infrastructure systems, such as in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. To build adaptive capabilities effectively, this study recognized the interdependencies among multiple infrastructure systems at the system-, organizational-, and project levels of planning. At the system level, adaptations addressing hazard-based threats to infrastructure systems—such as stormwater and transportation—strengthened infrastructure against cascading failures and improve efficiency in adapting interdependent infrastructure networks. At an organization level, teams that self-reorganized to fit project needs were found to respond more effectively to change and overcame difficulties in implementing adaptations. At a project level, anticipating and addressing causal relationships between the environment and infrastructure were found to improve the reliability of adaptations against catastrophic failure. The effective practices presented came from Malaysia, Sweden, Poland, and other countries around the world. Implementation of these complementary practices, together with asset-based adaptations as needed, can build adaptive capabilities by addressing the interdependencies between infrastructure planning at multiple levels.
Climate change impacts such as extreme temperatures, snow and ice, flooding, and sea level rise posed significant threats to railway infrastructure networks. One of the important questions that infrastructure managers need to answer is, "How will maintenance costs be affected due to climate change in different climate change scenarios?" This paper proposes an approach to estimate the implication of climate change on the life cycle cost (LCC) of railways infrastructure assets. The proportional hazard model is employed to capture the dynamic effects of climate change on reliability parameters and LCC of railway assets. A use-case from a railway in North Sweden is analyzed to validate the proposed process using data collected over 18 years. The results have shown that precipitation, temperature, and humidity are significant weather factors in selected use-case. Furthermore, our analyses show that LCC under future climate scenarios will be about 11 % higher than LCC without climate impacts.
One of the increasingly common methods to counteract the increased fuel consumption of vehicles is start-stop technology. This paper introduces a methodology which presents the process of measuring and creating a computational model of CO2 emissions using artificial intelligence techniques for a vehicle equipped with start-stop technology. The method requires only measurement data of velocity, acceleration of vehicle, and gradient of road to predict the emission of CO2. In this paper, three methods of machine learning techniques were analyzed, while the best prediction results are shown by the gradient boosting method. For the developed models, the results were validated using the coefficient of determination, the mean squared error, and based on visual evaluation of residual and instantaneous emission plots and CO2 emission maps. The developed models present a novel methodology and can be used for microscale environmental analysis.
The Paris Agreement on climate change recognizes, reluctantly albeit, the importance of ‘climate justice’ in its Preamble. Despite a change from a top-down burden-sharing approach to a bottom-up pledge and review regime, concerns of distributive justice remain central to the evolution of climate research, regime, and policy. The Paris Agreement also proposes a new market-based mechanism to promote ambition. Reasserting the unavoidability of ‘climate justice’ concerns, and responding to the suggestion that the proposed new market-based mechanism could learn from the experience of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), this paper argues that such a recommendation should be tested against a comprehensive understanding of compatibility between justice and the market. This paper postulates that both justice and the market have institutional underpinnings, which embed them into deeper, and interconnected, layers of values and relations. Arguing that ‘climate justice’ is best understood as ‘an agreed ensemble of values,’ we propose that the architecture of the UNFCCC in which these values are articulated, negotiated, and agreed upon needs to be conceptualized as consisting of four distinct, but evolving, institutional spheres: ambition, obligations and entitlements, mechanisms, and deliberation. The approach is illustrated using the case of the CDM, and implications are suggested for the proposed market-based mechanism under the Paris Agreement. The paper argues that the concerns of ‘climate justice’ have multiple institutional dimensions, and the market-based mechanisms may contribute to realizing certain dimensions of ‘climate justice,’ while considerably subverting others. The extent of both outcomes depends greatly on the ‘agreed’ conception of justice, design of mechanisms, and capabilities of the participants. Our findings suggest a judicious combination of non-market mechanisms with the market-based mechanisms would better serve the desired goal.
This paper presents a lab-in-the-field experiment with 2111 Dutch homeowners in floodplain areas to examine the impacts of financial incentives and behavioral motivations for self-insurance under different flood insurance schemes. We experimentally varied the insurance type (mandatory public versus voluntary private) and the availability of a premium discount incentive for investing in flood damage mitigation measures. This set-up allowed us to examine the existence of moral hazard, advantageous selection and the behavioral motivations of individual agents who face these different insurance types, without the selection bias that makes a causal inference from survey studies problematic. The main results show that a premium discount can increase investments in self-insurance under both private and public insurance. Moreover, we find no support for moral hazard in our natural disaster insurance market, but we do find a substantial share of cautious people who invest both in private insurance as well as in self-insurance, indicating advantageous selection. The results have implications for the design of insurance schemes to cope with increasing natural disaster risks.
Vulnerability of a socio-ecological system to one or more climatic hazards depends on climatic, geophysical,
socio-economic and institutional factors. In addition, vulnerability is a scale- and place-dependent concept.
While decision-making on adaptation is often made by local government, only a small number of local-scale
assessments have been conducted. When indicators are used, global utility functions based on additive or
multiplicative aggregation implicitly assume complete compensation between indicators, implying that one
source of vulnerability (e.g., proximity to the sea) can always be compensated for by an advantage in another
source (e.g., strong social or economic capital) when evidence shows that this is not always the case.
This paper presents an indicator-based assessment of vulnerability of eight beaches in Shoalhaven, New South
Wales, that are especially exposed to sea level rise. Its goal is twofold. First, it illustrates how indicator-based
vulnerability assessments can be applied at a local scale – and not just sectoral, regional and national scales –
with the aim of informing local government adaptation planning and resource allocation. In the process, models
operationalising the concepts of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity are developed for two valued attributes identified through discussions with the local council, namely the well-being of beach residents and the
well-being of users of infrastructure systems located at the beaches.
Second, the paper studies, for the first time, the way outranking procedures can be applied in real-life vulnerability
assessments as a form of data aggregation that better reflects the non-compensatory nature of many
vulnerability indicators. The strengths and weaknesses of the outranking approach are discussed, especially the
extent to which the concepts of preference, indifference and dominance thresholds can be conveyed to, and their
values elicited from, stakeholders.
The Belt and Road (B&R) initiative was introduced by the Chinese government to promote the worldwide economic development and multilateral cooperation between China and the associated countries. As a crucial part of global supply chains, transportation plays a key role to ensure the implementation of the B&R. Safety is one of the issues with great importance in transportation research. However, its foci have been expanded from traditional risk through security to resilience and sustainability. Resilience has attracted considerable interests from both researchers and practitioners across different research domains in recent years. Various studies have been conducted on transportation resilience from different perspectives. Consequently, different definitions have been developed to define and describe resilience. This paper presents a systematic review on transportation resilience with emphasis on its definitions, characteristics, and research methods applied in different transportation systems/contexts. It aims to figure out what transportation resilience is and what kind of essential characters it usually has. More importantly, research challenges are analysed and a future research agenda on the resilience of transportation systems is proposed. This paper will provide comprehensive insights into understanding the transportation resilience, as well as establish new horizons for relevant research topics within the context of the B&R.
Although climate change is a global problem, specific mitigation measures are frequently applied on regional or national scales only. This is the case in particular for measures to reduce the emissions of land-based transport, which is largely characterized by regional or national systems with independent infrastructure, organization, and regulation. The climate perturbations caused by regional transport emissions are small compared to those resulting from global emissions. Consequently, they can be smaller than the detection limits in global three-dimensional chemistry-climate model simulations, hampering the evaluation of the climate benefit of mitigation strategies. Hence, we developed a new approach to solve this problem. The approach is based on a combination of a detailed three-dimensional global chemistry-climate model system, aerosol-climate response functions, and a zero-dimensional climate response model. For demonstration purposes, the approach was applied to results from a transport and emission modeling suite, which was designed to quantify the present-day and possible future transport activities in Germany and the resulting emissions. The results show that, in a baseline scenario, German transport emissions result in an increase in global mean surface temperature of the order of 0.01 K during the 21st century. This effect is dominated by the CO2 emissions, in contrast to the impact of global transport emissions, where non-CO2 species make a larger relative contribution to transport-induced climate change than in the case of German emissions. Our new approach is ready for operational use to evaluate the climate benefit of mitigation strategies to reduce the impact of transport emissions.
Extreme weather is creating a growing challenge for disaster managers and transportation planners. The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) recently completed a study sponsored in part by the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to conduct an assessment of critical transportation assets in the state that are most vulnerable to plausible extreme weather events out to 2040. This vulnerability assessment required building an asset inventory, determining which of those assets should be considered critical, identifying various types of extreme weather events to which the critical assets may be exposed, and quantifying the potential asset damage and system disruption for the selected extreme weather event types and critical asset combinations. Combining this information then provided an overall vulnerability rating for the critical transportation assets in the state.
This research describes the current state of adaptation in the transport sector in Europe and explores their potential, lessons learnt and limits. The objective is to establish a typology of current approaches and assess their impact in terms of both, short term feasibility and long-term sustainability. As a result, some follow-up actions are suggested for policy making in terms of promoting better integrated consideration of mitigation and adaptation challenges, developing new technical tools and expertise to forecast potential climate change impacts, and expanding adaptation from the current operational focus to the planning and policy making fields.
Winter weather creates mobility challenges for most northern jurisdictions, leading to significant expenditures on winter road maintenance (WRM) activities. While the science and practice of snow and ice control is continually evolving, climate change presents particular challenges for the strategic planning of WRM. The purpose of this study is to: 1) develop a winter severity index (WSI) to better understand how winter weather translates into inter-annual variations in WRM activities; and 2) to apply the WSI to future climate change projections to assist a northern community in preparing for climate change. A new method for creating a WSI model is explored, using readily available data from maintenance records and meteorological stations. The WSI is created by optimizing values for three levels of snowfall as well as potential icing events and is shown to have high predictive accuracy for WRM (coefficient of determination [R2] of 0.93). The WSI is then applied to a historic and future climate dat...
Road accidents have the highest externality costs to society and to the economy, even when compared to the externality damages associated with air emissions and oil dependency. Road safety is one of the most complicated topics, which involves many interdependencies, and so, a sufficiently thorough analysis of roadway safety will require a novel system-based approach in which the associated feedback relationships and causal effects are given appropriate consideration. The factors affecting accident frequency and severity are highly dependent on economic parameters, environmental factors and weather conditions. In this study, we try to use a system dynamics modeling approach to model the climate change-road safety-economy nexus, thereby investigating the complex interactions among these important areas by tracking how they affect each other over time. For this purpose, five sub-models are developed to model each aspect of the overall nexus and to interact with each other to simulate the overall system. As a result, this comprehensive model can provide a platform for policy makers to test the effectiveness of different policy scenarios to reduce the negative consequences of traffic accidents and improve road safety.
This paper seeks to understand how the UK government's headline climate change targets are translated into action at the local level in the transport sector drawing on the findings of research in two English regions. In doing so, these headline targets are identified as a symbolic meta-policy that results in little action on the ground and which challenges established conceptions of policy implementation. Both the 'meta' and 'symbolic' aspects of the policy offer part of the explanation for the lack of substantive action on the ground. As a meta-policy, the headline targets across government require the elaboration of other policies at other levels such as targets for government departments and local authorities, but these are largely absent, leaving the meta-policy without teeth. Over time, these headline targets have developed into a symbolic policy, serving political goals but having little practical effectiveness.
Climate models project that the northern high latitudes will warm at a rate in excess of the global mean. This will pose severe problems for Arctic and sub-Arctic infrastructure dependent on maintaining low temperatures for structural integrity. This is the case for the economically important Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road (TCWR)—the world’s busiest heavy haul ice road, spanning 400 km across mostly frozen lakes within the Northwest Territories of Canada. In this study, future climate scenarios are developed for the region using statistical downscaling methods. In addition, changes in lake ice thickness are projected based on historical relationships between measured ice thickness and air temperatures. These projections are used to infer the theoretical operational dates of the TCWR based on weight limits for trucks on the ice. Results across three climate models driven by four RCPs reveal a considerable warming trend over the coming decades. Projected changes in ice thickness reveal a trend towards thinner lake ice and a reduced time window when lake ice is at sufficient thickness to support trucks on the ice road, driven by increasing future temperatures. Given the uncertainties inherent in climate modelling and the resultant projections, caution should be exercised in interpreting the magnitude of these scenarios. More certain is the direction of change, with a clear trend towards winter warming that will reduce the operation time window of the TCWR. This illustrates the need for planners and policymakers to consider future changes in climate when planning annual haulage along the TCWR.
Adaptation to climate change impacts is a key research topic in business ethics that poses substantial implications on the good lives of human beings. The commercial port sector is a highly relevant study focus with its pivotal roles in supply chains and international trade. Hence, it is important to investigate whether the port planning system and practice is appropriate in tackling climate change impacts. But beforehand, we must thoroughly understand the attitude and behaviors of port planners and operators on ports’ climate adaptation planning. Through a survey towards 21 ports (seaports and dry ports) in Canada, the paper investigates the attitude and behaviors of port planners and operators on ports’ climate adaptation planning. Towards the end, we propose a new approach so as to enable port stakeholders to carry out climate adaptation planning effectively. The paper offers important insight to researchers to investigate the ways in developing effective climate adaptation plans and practice for ports and other business sectors.
The road transport sector is facing rising uncertainties in planning and operations due to climate change induced changes in weather variability and extreme events. However, because of the high level of uncertainty related to the future climate, adaptation measures should be robust so as to retain the option value of the portfolio of measures. As an example of such a measure, this paper evaluates how foreseen innovations in weather services could reduce weather sensitivity and, consequently reduce the negative effects of climate change in the sector. The study is based on a theoretical framework on climate change adaptation and valuation of weather and climate services using the Weather Service Chain Analysis. We apply these frameworks to the road transport sector with a special emphasis on drivers’ decision making before and during a trip. We show that improved weather information, including more accurate weather forecasts, new applications and information dissemination channels can decrease the vulnerability of the mode to projected shifts in extreme weather patterns due to climate change.
Critical infrastructures vulnerability assessment involves understanding various socio-technological aspects of modern day infrastructures. While vulnerabilities exist at different scales, failures of large-scale installations in infrastructures are significant because they lead towards widespread social and economic disruptions. There is growing awareness of the multiple potential causes of failure, including those due to dependence upon other infrastructures. This paper establishes a framework for national analysis of vulnerability of interdependent infrastructures. We present: (i) A mathematical formulation of the vulnerability assessment; (ii) Network models for infrastructures that take in account the geographic, physical and operational characteristics of connecting nodes and edges; (iii) Interdependency mapping models that establish relationships between different subsystems within and across infrastructures; and (iv) Methods for implementing failure and disruption calculations. The methodology is demonstrated for Great Britain’s railway infrastructure, for which we have built detailed interdependency mappings between critical assets and infrastructures that support railway operations. Two key vulnerability assessment results, produced to examine failure impacts of such assets on railway passenger trip flows, include: (i) Random failure outcomes; and (ii) Flood vulnerability outcomes. The results show which critical infrastructure interdependencies potentially have large impacts on railway operations, providing a useful analysis tool for further risk and adaptation planning.
This paper presents a risk-based method to quantify climate change effects on road infrastructure, as a support for decision-making on interventions. This can be implemented in climate adaptation plans as an element of asset management. The method is illustrated by a specific case in which traffic on a road network is disrupted by the flooding of a tunnel due to extreme rainfall. Novel techniques to describe both probability of occurrence and consequences of an event are integrated into the proposed risk-based approach. To model a typical climate-change related phenomenon, i.e. rainfall intensity-duration, a model using copulas is proposed as well as a method to account for uncertainty using structured expert judgement. To quantify the consequences, an existing quick scan tool is adopted. The method calculates the risk of flooding of a tunnel, expressed in both probability of occurrence and subsequent additional travel duration on the road network. By comparison of this evolving risk to a societally acceptable threshold, the remaining resilience of the tunnel is evaluated. Furthermore, the method assesses the development of the resilience over time as a result of projected climate change. The maximum time-to-intervention is defined as the period up until the moment when the resilience is depleted. By application of the method to a tunnel in two different contexts, i.e. in a regional road network and a highway network, it is shown that the consequences of tunnel flooding may differ by an order of magnitude (25-fold for the example). Using a risk-based decision-making perspective leads to significant differences in the maximum time-to-intervention. In the example case the year of intervention is determined at 2020 for a tunnel in a highway network, while interventions can be postponed until 2140 in a regional road network.
In the light of the rising cost of natural disasters we review the provision of catastrophe insurance by the public sector in the US, France, New Zealand, Spain, the United Kingdom, and its absence in the Netherlands, where flood risk is viewed as a national security concern. We do this in the context of the Australian home insurance market where insurers increasingly employ risk-reflective, multi-peril premiums as new technology allows them to better understand their exposure to risk. Motivations behind government pools vary by country, as do hazard profiles. In the US, for example, pools have usually arisen in the face of market failure of private sector insurance following a significant natural disaster; the initial concern has been the provision of affordable insurance rather than disaster risk reduction. Government pools have certain advantages over the private sector including their ability to raise funds post-event, but face financial unsustainability given political intervention to maintain affordability of cover in high-risk areas. In Australia, it is too early to judge whether risk-based premiums are leading to better land-use planning and increased mitigation spending, but in the case of northern Australia, a region that faces flooding and tropical cyclone risks, rising premiums are causing concern in Government. Nonetheless, the corollary seems self-evident, i.e. in the absence of transparency about the cost of risk, there is no incentive on the part of homeowners, local councils or land developers to improve the ‘riskscape'; insurers are the only actors with immediate financial incentives to acknowledge these risks.
Climate change has the potential to impact long-term road pavement performance. Consequently, to maintain pavements within the same ranges of serviceability as before, current pavement maintenance strategies need to be re-assessed and, if necessary, changed. Changes in maintenance may lead to different agency costs and user costs as a consequence. This paper commences by defining an assessment procedure, showing how maintenance intervention strategies and Life-Cycle Costs (LCC) may be affected by future climate. A typical Virginia flexible pavement structure and anticipated climate change was used as an example. This example is believed to be representative for a great number of localities in the United States. A method using historical climatic data and climate change projections to predict pavement performance using Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) under current or future climate was introduced. Based on pavement performance prediction, maintenance interventions were planned and optimized. The maintenance effects of three treatments (thin overlay, thin overlay with an intermediate layer, and mill & fill) were considered. A Life-Cycle Cost analysis is reported that used binary non-linear programming to minimize the costs (either agency costs or total costs) by optimizing intervention strategies in terms of type and application time. By these means, the differences in maintenance planning and LCC under current and future climate can be derived. It was found, that for this simplified case study, pavement maintenance and LCC may be affected by climate change Optimized maintenance may improve resilience to climate change in terms of intervention strategy and LCC, compared to responsive maintenance.
No strangers to the phenomenon of climate change, transport-related authorities responsible for managing its impacts have lately turned their attention to exploring ways to address the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events and natural hazards, often referred to as "the face of climate change." In the quest to identify optimal alternatives that will reduce the effects of climate change on human ecosystems, these authorities find themselves presented with a series of options. Nonetheless, transportation authorities have no assurances that their choices will best deal with the challenges and therefore substantially contribute to the minimization of negative climate change impacts. Following a detailed literature review of both research efforts and actual case-study experience, adaptation measures for road, rail, air, and water transportation are consolidated and related to the extreme weather events, natural hazards, or both that they mostly address. The review is concluded in the form of a measure and policy database, which is then evaluated through a series of performance indicators. These indicators include the extent to which each measure contributes to the enhancement of transport system resilience as well as the temporal and financial resources required for its implementation. The evaluation is conducted by using an expert group survey covering multiple sectors and disciplines (academia, research, industry, and government). Findings are formulated in the form of roadmaps for climate change adaptation measures for the transport sector; these roadmaps can serve as a useful tool and basis for an improved decision-making approach for different end users to address climate change.
Purpose
– The purpose of this study is to examine the potential impact of climate change on the built environment in four Northern Asian countries. The impact on roads and buildings infrastructure in China, Japan, South Korea and Mongolia were considered during the decades 2030, 2050 and 2090.
Design/methodology/approach
– The study is based on a stressor-response approach, where using the analysis of 17 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) approved Global Circulation Model (GCM) scenarios, projections for impacts from flooding events, precipitation amounts and temperature were determined. The cost of the impacts, based on both maintenance and new construction considerations, were then determined. “Adapt” and “No Adapt” scenarios were incorporated to predict potential costs in each era.
Findings
– Mongolia is vulnerable under the majority of scenarios and faces the greatest opportunity cost in terms of potential loss to enhancing the road stock. China is also vulnerable, but the extent of this vulnerability varies widely based on the climate scenarios. Japan is primarily vulnerable to road stock impacts, although some scenarios indicate buildings vulnerability. South Korea appears to have the least vulnerability but could still face $1 billion annual costs from climate change impacts.
Practical implications
– Results indicate the need for proactive policy planning to avoid costly impacts later in the century.
Originality/value
– The study illustrates the diverse affects that may occur under climate change scenarios and the potential benefit gained from understanding and planning for the projected climate impacts on the built environment.
This paper estimates the economic impact of climate change on road infrastructure using the stressor-response methodology. Our analysis indicates that it could cumulatively (2020-2100) cost Ghana 678.47 million due to the initial costs of adaptation. This investment provides lower costs on a decadal basis later in the infrastructure lifespan. This creates the planning question of whether lower decadal costs in the future are a priority or if minimizing initial costs is a priority. The paper addresses this question through decadal and average annual costs up to the year 2100 for the ten regions, using the potential impacts of 54 distinct potential climate scenarios.
Transport infrastructure is particularly vulnerable to climate impacts as it is designed for long operational lives, and both episodic and seasonal conditions contribute to deterioration, disruption and unsafe incidents. There are some examples of adaptation in transportation design, but many communities do not have the capacity to incorporate climate change considerations into infrastructure planning and management. Researchers worked closely with the City of Prince George, in Central British Columbia, Canada, to build on existing work and explore how the City could plan, design, and maintain roads and other structures to account for climate change. A local steering committee was formed, and created and evaluated 23 potential research topics. Two focus areas were selected for further investigation and explored during a workshop with practitioners, researchers, consultants and other representatives. The workshop precipitated an investigation of projected impacts of climate change on road maintenance and road safety, and plans to explore alternative paving techniques. Outcomes of the case study provide insights regarding climate change and local transportation infrastructure, including: how researchers can engage with local experts to explore adaptation; issues local governments perceive as important; and barriers communities face as they attempt to address vulnerabilities.
This study investigates the development and performance of an innovative
approach to the management of transportation, land use, air quality,
housing and a variety of other regional development issues, called
“blueprinting.” Blueprinting refers to a process that brings together
planning experts, local political leaders, and ordinary citizens, arms them
with current planning ideas about “smart growth” and data visualization
tools, to develop long range regional development plans. As such,
blueprinting represents a recent manifestation of regionalist approaches
environmental policy and planning. Focusing on the Sacramento region, an
early adopter of blueprint planning, we use archival data and media
sources to reconstruct the development of blueprinting and then we turn to
an analysis of the performance of the blueprinting approach in relation to
three successive planning efforts. We find that despite the promise of
blueprinting, very little progress has been made toward actually changing
the regional transportation system and land use patterns. The net result of
this long-term planning effort aimed at achieving sustainable
transportation-land use is that total CO2 emissions increase over time at
historical rates. We close with a discussion of what this means for regional
planning and achieving goals set by California’s landmark climate change
legislation.
Most seaports face constraints in financial resources to some degree, and thus need to balance the investments in capacity and natural disaster prevention. On the one hand, due to budget constraint, limited resources need to be allocated between the two tasks. On the other hand, the benefit of natural disaster prevention investment is likely to be higher for ports with larger capacity. This study builds a stylized analytical model to examine the managerial and policy implications of such interactions between the two counteracting mechanisms. We find that the port managers would always prioritize capacity investment over natural disaster prevention investment. Social welfare maximizing ports invest more in both capacity and disaster prevention than those chosen by profit maximizing operators. However, compared with profit maximizing ports, welfare maximizing ports also require a larger budget to justify the investment in disaster prevention. Moreover, with increasing intensity of natural disaster, a port’s capacity investment decreases and its disaster prevention investment increases, irrespective of its objective. The magnitudes of both changes are larger for welfare maximizing ports than for profit maximizing ports.
Climate change poses critical challenges for rail infrastructure and operations. However, the systematic analysis of climate risks and the associated costs of tackling them, particularly from a quantitative perspective, is still at an embryonic phase due to the kaleidoscopic nature of climate change impacts and lack of precise climatic data. To cope with such challenges, an advanced Fuzzy Bayesian Reasoning (FBR) model is applied in this paper to understand climate threats of the railway system. This model ranks climate risks under high uncertainty in data and comprehensively evaluates these risks by taking account of infrastructure resilience and specific aspects of severity of consequence. Through conducting a nationwide survey on the British railway system, it dissects the status quo of primary climate risks. The survey implies that the top potential climate threats are heavy precipitation and floods. The primary risks caused by the climate threats are bridges collapsing and bridge foundation damage due to flooding and landslips. The findings can aid transport planners to prioritise climate risks and develop rational adaptation measures and strategies.
We investigate the size and timing of investment in adaptation to climate change effects for ports, when efficiency of investment is uncertain and the market is competitive. We develop a two-period real options game model with two “landlord” ports, each consisting of a port authority (PA) and a downstream terminal operator company (TOC). The two PAs compete with each other at the upstream level, and the two TOCs downstream. The model assumes an accumulation of information about the adaptation projects over time, allowing decision-makers to improve the investment efficiency. The results show that the optimal timing of investment is significantly influenced by the disaster occurrence probability, the potential information gain over time and the level of competition. When competition is intensified, it is optimal for ports to invest earlier than later. However, immediate investments are less preferred when competition is weak, even lesser in the presence of information accumulation. Waiting until the next period to invest is also a better option if the disaster occurrence probability is low or if the shippers’ expected disaster losses are negligible. Moreover, information accumulation reduces the ports’ investment size, while improving the discounted welfare associated with late investments. These results hold for both the private and public ports and for simultaneous investments by the PAs. In most cases, social welfare is much higher with immediate investments, mainly because of the associated positive spillover effects on the surrounding areas and other sectors of economy. The implications of the assumption of Knightian uncertainty for the disaster occurrence probability are discussed.
This paper aims to analyse the impacts of climate change to the current and predicted future situations of road transportation in the UK and evaluate the corresponding adaptation plans to cope with them. A conceptual framework of long-term adaptation planning for climate change in road systems is proposed to ensure the resilience and sustainability of road transport systems under various climate risks such as flooding and increased temperature. To do so, an advanced Fuzzy Bayesian Reasoning (FBR) model is first employed to evaluate the climate risks in the UK road transport networks. This modelling approach can tackle the high uncertainty in risk data and thus facilitate the development of the climate adaptation framework and its application in the UK road sector. To examine the feasibility of this model, a nationwide survey is conducted among the stakeholders to analyse the climate risks, in terms of the timeframe of climate threats, the likelihood of occurrence, the severity of consequences, and infrastructure resilience. From the modelling perspective, this work brings novelty by expanding the risk attribute “the severity of consequence” into three sub-attributes including economic loss, damage to the environment, and injuries and/or loss of life. It advances the-state-of-the-art technique in the current relevant literature from a single to multiple tier climate risk modelling structure. Secondly, an Evidential Reasoning (ER) approach is used to prioritise the best adaptation measure(s) by considering both the risk analysis results from the FBR and the implementation costs simultaneously. The main new contributions of this part lie in the rich raw data collected from the real world to provide useful practical insights for achieving road resilience when facing increasing climate risk challenges. During this process, a qualitative analysis of several national reports regarding the impacts posed by climate change, risk assessment and adaptation measures in the UK road sector is conducted for the relevant decision data (i.e. risk and cost). It is also supplemented by an in-depth interview with a senior planner from Highways England. The findings provide road planners and decision makers with useful insights on identification and prioritisation of climate threats as well as selection of cost-effective climate adaptation measures to rationalise adaptation planning.
The increase in extreme weather events due to climate change poses serious challenges to public transit systems. These events disrupt transit operations, impair service quality, increase threats to public safety, and damage infrastructure. Despite the growing risk of extreme weather and climate change, little is known about how public managers recognize, experience and address these risks. Using data from a national study of public transit agencies we investigate the types of extreme weather events transit agencies are experiencing, the associated risks, and how agencies are preparing for them. We find that while extreme events are commonly experienced by transit agencies across states and transit managers perceive increased risks from these events, most agencies rely on the traditional emergency management approach to address extreme weather ex post rather than taking a proactive approach to mitigating the adverse weather impact on transit assets and infrastructure ex ante. Managers report that a lack of access to financial resources is the greatest challenge for undertaking adaptation and preparation. We conclude with a discussion of what these findings mean for understanding organizational adaptation behavior as well as climate adaptation policy making.
Europe's climate change vulnerability pushes for initiatives such as the European Adaptation Strategy and the associated Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy. What are the triggers and barriers, for which sectors and for which risks and how is adaptation funded? This paper examines 147 Local Adaptation Strategies in Europe. Key triggers were incentives via research projects, implementation of EU policies and the increasing frequency of extreme climate events. Insufficient resources, capacity, political commitment and uncertainty were the main barriers. Prioritized sectors reflected the main local vulnerabilities-flood protection and water management, built environment and urban planning. Differing patterns of adaptation planning and adaptive capacity were identified among different regions in Europe. Large municipalities generally fund adaptation locally, whereas international and national funding appears to be more important for adaptation in less urban or densely populated territories. The database of LAS described in the present study can be expanded and used to increase the understanding of and promotion of local adaptation action in Europe and beyond.
Seaports and airports are the critical nodes of international supply chains and thus stand on the edge of social and economic disasters. They are often affected by extreme and rough weather. Comparing all climate threats, sea level rise (SLR) and storming and flooding currently present, according to the relevant literature, the most severe impact in ports and airports. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of seaport and airport adaptation to climate change with a focus on SLR and flooding. We have summarized all related research papers and divided them into different types and described the trend of studies. After that, the study involves a comparison to analyze the synergy between previous studies in seaports and airports and provides insights for further studies to emphasize the needs and opportunities for the collaborative work that can complement the adaptation planning of and ensure the resilience of seaports and airports.
Spatial planning is expected to facilitate climate change adaptation by directing future spatial and infrastructure developments away from zones that are exposed to climate-related hazards. This study attempts to confirm this understanding by mapping the effects of the various spatial plans on the northern coast of Java, Indonesia. First, the study maps the extent of coastal hazards for the baseline year of 2010 using a GIS-based inundation model. An overlay in GIS demonstrates the influence of spatial plans for the projection year of 2030. This allows for calculating the economic losses of the planned developments. The case study shows that the current provincial spatial plans direct land use conversions along the northern coast of Java to continue to occur in the future. This could significantly decrease the regional capacity in dealing with the exposure to coastal inundation. The analysis also demonstrates that a total area of 55,220 ha of land prone to inundation, consisting of protected area (1488 ha), fishponds (32,916 ha) and agricultural land (20,814 ha), is planned to be converted into industry (13,399 ha) and settlements (41,821 ha). Thus, these areas will be also prone to inundation in 2030. This change would potentially lead to an economic loss of 246.6 billion USD. The spatial plans issued by the national and provincial governments for regulating the future land use on the northern coast of Java have not integrated measures against hazards related to global sea level rise. Meanwhile, many existing developments have already been affected by coastal inundation. Rather than reducing the exposure towards coastal flood hazards, the case study shows that spatial plans could even increase the risk of climate-related hazards and cause higher economic losses. These findings provide a different perspective on the role of spatial planning for climate change adaptation than what is stated in the literature.
Ports are an important economic actor—at local, national, and international scales—that have been identified as being vulnerable to future changes to the climate. This paper details the findings from an international review of state‐of‐the‐art knowledge concerning climate risks, and adaptation responses, for ports and their supply chains. Evidence from both academic and gray literature indicates that there has already been major damage and disruption to ports across the world from climate‐related hazards and that such impacts are projected to increase in the years and decades to come. Findings indicate that while a substantial—and growing—body of scientific evidence on coastal risks and potential adaptation options is acting as a stimulus for port authorities to explicitly consider the risks for their assets and operations, only a notable few have actually made the next step toward implementing adaptation strategies. This paper concludes by putting forward constructive recommendations for the sector and suggestions for research to address remaining knowledge gaps. It emphasizes a call for collaboration between the research and practice communities, as well as the need to engage a broad range of stakeholders in the adaptation planning process.
This article is categorized under: Assessing Impacts of Climate Change > Evaluating Future Impacts of Climate Change
An integrated alternative planning can control climate change drivers and mitigate or neutralize the adverse impacts of the changing climate on the transportation energy sector. In this article, we introduced an infrastructure of alternative fuel as a synergistic approach to climate-adaptation and -mitigation, and advanced a quantitative method to simulate the dependency of travel behavior on fuel availability when the infrastructure of transportation energy is stressed or under attack.
Our approach allows both commuters traveling behavior and properties of transportation energy system to interact. Featuring a multi-stage mathematical program, the proposed model was used to study the resilience of New York City's transportation energy sector in the face of a range of climatic extremes.
We found the impact of the changing climate on energy sector is major and worsening over time. The modeling results also reveal spatial distribution of vulnerable elements in both transportation and fueling infrastructures, the system's overall resilience in time of disaster, and the daily-commuters impact of vulnerable energy infrastructure. The modeling results are crucial to successful integrated planning response to climate-adaptation and -mitigation.
In this paper, the risks of flooding hazards to the transportation system in urban Honolulu are assessed using a regional travel demand model (TDM). The approach serves to support understanding of evacuation and sheltering needs. Coastal and inland flooding hazard scenarios were modeled with four different hazard conditions. The inundation defined by the Maximum Envelope of High Water (MEOW) based on a hurricane that struck Hawaii and a tsunami run-up generated by historical earthquake events combined with a one-meter rise in sea level provided the worst possible coastal flooding scenario. A 500-year return period riverine flooding scenario was also included. The critical flooding hazard was transformed into a uniform 100 by 100. meter GIS based grid system. The Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization (OMPO) TransCAD model for 2035 provided the origin and destination trips for eleven trip types including motorized and non-motorized travel modes. The OMPO model includes personal travel, travel to the airport, commercial vehicle travel and visitor travel sub-models. Origin and destination trip matrices for Traffic Analysis Zones (TAZ) and highway and transit assignment details were extracted from the model. The O-D trips and road segment traffic details were transformed to the spatial grid system and overlaid on the flooding hazard layer. The spatial categorization of the flooding along with the trip and travel data from the TDM provided a robust method to quantify and visualize risks to travelers and the transportation system. The analysis shows that flooding hazard scenarios have serious risks in Honolulu. First, a large portion of the study area is susceptible to flooding, threatening the population, economy, and infrastructure. Second, in addition to areas susceptible to flooding, a larger percentage of origins, destinations, trips and vehicle miles of travel (VMT) are affected because of the need to travel through the at-risk areas. Third, commercial, transit and non-motorized trips are disproportionately affected compared to auto travel. This paper demonstrates how hazard data and risk models can be integrated with travel demand models for purposes of evacuation planning and sheltering as well as emergency planning and hazard mitigation and adaptation of the transportation system to climate change.
Improving air quality across mainland China is an urgent policy challenge. While much of the problem is linked to China’s broader reliance on coal and other fossil fuels across the energy system, road transportation is an important and growing source of air pollution. Here we use an energy-economic model, embedded in a Regional Emissions Air Quality Climate and Health (REACH) integrated assessment framework, to analyze the impacts of implementing vehicle emissions standards (ES) together with a broader economy-wide climate policy on total air pollution in five species and 30 Chinese provinces. We find that full and immediate implementation of existing vehicle ES at China 3/III level or tighter will significantly reduce the contribution of transportation to degraded air quality by 2030. We further show that road transport ES function as an important complement to an economy-wide price on CO2, which delivers significant co-benefits for air pollution reduction that are concentrated primarily in non-transportation sectors. Going forward, vehicle emissions standards and an economy-wide carbon price form a highly effective coordinated policy package that supports China’s air quality and climate change mitigation goals.
The paper investigates collaborative and semantic patterns that emerged between 1967 and 2013 about the theme of container shipping based on a corpus of 294 articles published in scholarly journals within the fields of transportation, supply chain, economics, geography, regional planning and development, and operations research. An analysis based on the co-occurrence of title words allows identifying dominant sub-themes and their evolution. Main results point to the gradual diversification of container shipping research, from the dominance of economics towards a more trans-disciplinary set of approaches which integrate port-related activities and multimodal networks. Yet, disciplinary specialization remains strong up to nowadays so that container shipping research remains rather fragmented. While co-authorships have increased over time, they remain polarized by few, weakly connected research battalions. Our study suggests that research on container shipping would benefit from more frequent contacts between such communities to foster in-depth cross-disciplinary studies and fundamental cooperation.
The long term impact posed by climate change risk remains unclear and is subject to diverse interpretations from different maritime stakeholders. The inter-dynamics between climate change and ports can also significantly diversify in different geographical regions. Consequently, risk and cost data used to support climate adaptation is of high uncertainty and in many occasions, real data is often unavailable and incomplete. This paper presents a risk and cost evaluation methodology that can be applied to the analysis of port climate change adaptation measures in situations where data uncertainty is high. Risk and cost criteria are used in a decision-making model for the selection of climate adaptation measures. Information produced using a fuzzy-Bayesian risk analysis approach is utilized to evaluate risk reduction outcomes from the use of adaptation measures in ports. An evidential reasoning approach is then employed to synthesize the risk reduction data as inputs to the decision-making model. The results can assist policymakers in developing efficient adaptation measures that take into account the reduction in the likelihood of risks, their possible consequences, their timeframe, and costs incurred.
There is increasing recognition that organisations, particularly in key infrastructure sectors, are potentially vulnerable to climate change and extreme weather events, and require organisational responses to ensure they are resilient and adaptive. However, detailed evidence of how adaptation is facilitated, implemented and reported, particularly through legislative mechanisms is lacking. The United Kingdom Climate Change Act (2008), introduced the Adaptation Reporting Power, enabling the Government to direct so-called reporting authorities to report their climate change risks and adaptation plans. We describe the authors' unique role and experience supporting the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) during the Adaptation Reporting Power's first round. An evaluation framework, used to review the adaptation reports, is presented alongside evidence on how the process provides new insights into adaptation activities and triggered organisational change in 78% of reporting authorities, including the embedding of climate risk and adaptation issues. The role of legislative mechanisms and risk-based approaches in driving and delivering adaptation is discussed alongside future research needs, including the development of organisational maturity models to determine resilient and well adapting organisations. The Adaptation Reporting Power process provides a basis for similar initiatives in other countries, although a clear engagement strategy to ensure buy-in to the process and research on its long-term legacy, including the potential merits of voluntary approaches, is required.
Climate projections predict an increase in future climate variability. To ensure economically, socially and environmentally responsible transportation planning, it is necessary to consider future weather variations driven by climate change. Despite growing evidence that considering climatic changes is an imperative for resilient future infrastructure, management agencies rarely incorporate climate change into decision-making processes. One reason is the lack of tangible information and tools to help predict and plan for future conditions.
Since the 1970s, European and US regulators have used different varieties of market-based environmental policy, which are rooted in competing types of liberalism: price instruments and quantity instruments, respectively. In the case of climate change, however, the EU and the US have converged on hybrid policy mixes. This convergence in instrument choice is examined in two cases: the emergence of the EU Emission Trading Scheme, i.e. the import of quantity regulation to the EU; and the creation of California’s feed-in tariff, i.e. the import of price regulation to the US. Increasing convergence in instrument choice is the result of international diffusion through learning and shifting domestic coalitions. This demonstrates that the two varieties of market-based environmental policy increasingly blend, and how policy import is driven by domestic government–producer coalitions rather than by policy-maker ideas of ‘best practice.’
To create and sustain resilient infrastructure systems, decision makers must consider a changing climate in their design and maintenance planning. However, significant barriers exist to constrain the understanding and implementation of climate change considerations, including the inherent uncertainty in climate change model projections. The high level of uncertainty related to climate projections makes the engineering planning process difficult because it is impossible to fully know future climate conditions relative to historical design standards. This paper seeks to address this challenge by introducing a new method for calculating robust decisions rooted in existing decision theory and uncertainty. This paper details the framework used for the new decision-making process and describes how the framework can provide guidance about achieving low-regret adaptation options for resilient road infrastructure design. A case study of a province in Mexico illustrates the application of the framework to an actual transportation planning effort.
Natural hazards of river flooding, erosion, landslides and high sediment loads in streams and rivers continue to pose a significant threat to the management of infrastructure, particularly road transport, in most parts of the world. In Asia and Africa, especially, these hazards are considered to be on the increase in response to climate and land userelated factors. Recent studies in Africa and especially Ethiopia lead to the conclusion that complex and poorly understood interactions between geology, climate change and land use change have given rise to increased levels of damage and disruption to transport infrastructure. The prognosis for the future is that these trends will continue and perhaps accelerate. Current policies tend to focus on the ‘proofing’ of infrastructure against future climate change, possibly without due regard to other factors that may be more important in the short–medium term. This is possibly counterproductive in situations where existing and future risks are determined more by geohazard uncertainty and design deficiencies, and the sometimes overriding effects of land use change and land management practices.