More intense and more frequent extreme precipitation events are projected in a warming climate. With this risk comes possible detrimental outcomes based on what has happened in the past. Water rises over bridges. Homes, businesses, and roads on steep hills fall away in a landslide. Tornadoes rip through towns. Planes are grounded. And, regardless of the rain, fires destroy vast areas and the smoke travels across thousands of miles.
It’s become common to hear that “one-in-a-hundred-year events” are occurring in five-, 10-, and 15-year periods. Scientists
identify these extreme weather events based on the historical record of weather in a particular region. A “return time” is a commonly used metric of probability; for example, a
100-year return time means that in any given year, there is a 1-in-100 chance of the threshold being reached.
John L. Anderson, President of the National Academy of Engineering, and Thomas P. Bostick, former Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
have discussed the different kinds of infrastructure and systems susceptible to climate impacts, the wide range of engineering solutions that can play a role in building a resilient and net-zero future, and the ways to help prepare the next generation of engineers for such a monumental task.
Climate Conversations: Pathways to Action is a webinar series from the National Academies that aims to convene high-level, cross-cutting, nonpartisan conversations about issues relevant to national policy action on climate change.
Budgeting for extremes
State departments of transportation (DOTs) are becoming accustomed to taking changing climate and extreme weather into account when making infrastructure decisions, but they are not always using a formal set of tools for cost-benefit analysis to address climate resilience. TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP)
Incorporating the Costs and Benefits of Adaptation Measures in Preparation for Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change—Guidebook was developed to fill the gaps in the routine use of cost-benefit analysis and other decisions-making tools in light of extreme weather.
TRB’s consensus study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Investing in Transportation Resilience: A Framework for Informed Choices reviews current practices by transportation agencies for evaluating resilience and conducting investment analysis for the purpose of restoring and adding resilience. The committee behind the report concluded that the widespread adoption of a systematic decision support framework, such as a benefit-cost analysis or high-quality data and analytics is the most promising way for making resilience a key driver of agency decision-making.
Specifically, the report recommends that Congress consider a requirement that all projects that are candidates for federal funding involving long-lived assets undergo well-defined resilience assessments that account for changing risks of natural hazards and environmental conditions stemming from climate change.
Professionals in the aviation industry are also keeping a step ahead of preparations for extreme weather events and climate change. TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) provides
Climate Resilience and Benefit-Cost Analysis: A Handbook for Airports published in 2019 to assess the benefits, costs, and financial feasibility of infrastructure projects designed to improve resilience. Case studies of airports in Phoenix, Boston, New Orleans, and Little Rock explore how extreme weather events can affect small and large airports. In summary, evaluating climate resilience at airports may be wisely considered part of the overall risk management processes.
For more TRB resources on building resilience into transportation planning, see TRB’s blog post,
Resilience Research Becoming a Bigger Part of Transportation Planning.
Escalating preparations from basic to extreme
At TRB’s 2020
Marine Board Spring Meeting,
Suzanne Lemieux of the American Petroleum Institute mentioned the
lessons learned from Harvey in terms of resilience, working from home,
and managing systems for dealing with the ongoing coronavirus disease
(COVID-19) pandemic. The 2020 hurricane season started unseasonably
early, so the industry was already preparing for facing the dual threats
of hurricanes and COVID-19 as early as May. The 2021 Atlantic hurricane
season is also expected to be above-average.
A summary of TRB's 2019
conference on resilience
presents advancements made in transportation systems resilience to
natural hazards, climate change, and impacts from extreme weather
events. It includes an educational flood mitigation demonstration.
Flood warning and response systems are used to determine personnel staging, deciding when to close roads, inspecting bridges, tracking, and planning recovery. NCHRP’s
Practices for Integrated Flood Prediction and Response Systems provides and overview from agencies that are involved in finding new or innovative ways to improve current practices.
Extreme weather effects reach from the sky to deep underground,
requiring preparations that are unique to each aspect of transportation.
TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Project (TCRP) offers a series of
reports on
Improving the Resilience of Transit Systems Threatened by Natural Disasters
with practices for all sizes of transit systems to absorb the impacts
of disaster, recover quickly, and return rapidly to providing the
services that customers rely on to meet their travel needs. It notes
resilienttransit.org as a resource to identify tools to help plan for natural disasters.
NCHRP’s 2018
Resilience in Transportation Planning, Engineering, Management, Policy, and Administration
documents the organization and implementation of resilience efforts
within agencies’ core functions and services. One example is the Arizona
Department of Transportation (DOT) focus on centralizing efforts and
enforcing partnerships established to address extreme weather events
including extreme heat, precipitation, and wildfire. The efforts of this
resilience planning touch on funding and tool development, the DOT’s
5-year construction program, emergency response, drainage decisions, and
more.
Eight cases of diverse weather events in the U.S. from 2007-2012
highlighted the broad and evolving nature of keeping up with
transportation infrastructure. NCHRP’s
Response to Extreme Weather Impacts on Transportation Systems offers in-depth lessons learned and effective practices for addressing this specific challenge.
Research leadership from TRB
TRB webinars help strengthen the transportation industry’s resilience to these events including:
TRB has provided practitioners with research findings of potential impacts of climate change and extreme weather on the U.S. Highway system for years. The
2014 Strategic Issues Facing Transportation research showed the need for a solid foundation to plan for the impacts of climate change through 2050. The increasing demands for highway reconstruction and rehabilitation happening now provide an opportunity to incorporate climate adaptation strategies.
Speakers at a 2018 TRB conference on
freight analytics impacts on the Marine Transportation System addressed the role of sea level rise on the field. One presenter specifically spoke on using the expert elicitation of port authorities to assess the vulnerability and the adaptive capacity of ports to the rising threats of extreme weather and sea level rise.
ACRP also offers
Integrating Sustainability Planning and the Environmental Review Process from 2019 as a manual for planners who are integrating the environmental review and sustainability planning processes at airports. The fields of sustainability planning and environmental review share overlap, providing another opportunity for planning and infrastructure enhancement in transportation.
TRB continues to look to the future to better incorporate extreme event and climate change into transportation planning. An active NCHRP project aims to construct a series of workshops for state DOT personnel to share information on performance measures in
snow and ice control operations as well as customizing the measures to report outwardly. Another NCHRP project will synthesize state DOT uses of
distributed rainfall models for hydrologic analyses of bridge projects and highways in floodplains.
Further your career in transportation planning for extreme weather events or climate change by getting involved with TRB. You can become a friend of TRB’s
Standing Technical Committee on Extreme Weather and Climate Change Adaptation. Friends of committees receive updates on and can volunteer to participate in committee activities.
Get involved in this work with the Cooperative Research Programs. Look for
ongoing information on new projects, requests for proposals, or to nominate yourself or others to serve on a project panel. Submit problem statement research ideas and find new announcements in
TRB’s weekly newsletter or on the homepages for
ACRP,
NCHRP, and
TCRP. Your expertise can be of service as extreme events require extreme preparation.
TRB resources cited in this article:
National Academies resources:
TRB projects cited in this article:
TRB events cited in this article:
TRB committees cited in this article:
External resources cited in this article:
Additional TRB resources:
Contact:
Beth Ewoldsen, Content Strategist
Transportation Research Board
202-334-2353;
bewoldsen@nas.edu
Published May 2020, most recently updated August 2021
This Summary Last Modified On: 9/16/2021