Abstract
Climate change is a fact of life and will remain so for decades, whatever mitigation measures may be invoked. Transport professionals need to adapt their practices to explicitly include climate considerations, especially with regard to the provision, management and operations of transport facilities, infrastructure and assets that will be in use for many decades. This note uses the example of transport infrastructure to consider how to undertake the explicit inclusion of climate factors in engineering practice, by considering three major themes for climate change adaptation:
1. the options for changing practice, not merely refining or improving current practice
2. risk management and the development of adaptation frameworks and pathways, with appropriate decision support tools, and
3. in terms of the natural phenomena affecting transport systems and themselves affected by climate change, the central role of water, in its many guises, in the degradation and limitation of the performance of transport facilities, assets and systems. Temperature cannot be ignored either, but water in the wrong place or in the wrong amount is always a problem.
Disclaimer
The views represented are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of CILT.
