Infrastructure Resilience against Environmental Changes (Part 4)

Designing for a Changing World

The urban world is experiencing unprecedented pressure to change and adapt. As has been explored over sections 1 and 2, there are many ways this pressure manifests itself, but it’s difficult to escape from that fact that many of these manifestations are a product of the broader changes being experienced by our climate and environment. Environmental and climate change are going to be defining themes driving change for the next century; agreements such at Kyoto Protocol [1] and The Paris Agreement [2] have been landmark victories in establishing global acknowledgement of the need to tackle climate change. Not only this, but these agreements have also acted to gather commitment from individual countries to take action to reduce their collective contribution towards climate change (see Figure 1 for a timeline of climate summit achievements). These agreements, alongside the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal No.13 on Climate Change [3], global discourse and national governmental action (e.g. the UK’s 2050 commitment to net-zero GHG emissions[4]) demonstrate the magnitude of the potential impact due to climate change. 

Figure 1 – Figure showing the progression of the main climate summits (COP) and their associated achievements [5].

Moving beyond the broad commitments made by governments, climate change impacts a wide range of infrastructure elements ranging from waste management, food production, mobility, the built environment and energy. Each of these elements both contribute and are affected by environmental change resulting from climate variables. For this reason, understanding the resilience challenges faced by the different elements of infrastructure is integral to determining how these elements can be made more resilient. 

The UK’s National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) created a report [6] exploring the impact of climate and environmental change on infrastructure. In this report, the impact of climate change on infrastructure and the knock-on impact of that infrastructure on service provision were explored. Pertinently within the NIC report, information was compiled on various climate change variables and their impact on infrastructure. This information is recapitulated in Table 1.

Furthermore, the NIC report [6] also discussed the individual sectors most at risk due to different climate variables. The full findings are presented in Table 2, but it’s important to note that risks due to floods are indicated as of particular significance to all but Solid Waste infrastructure sectors. As an additional layer to this assessment, the UK’s Committee on Climate Change published the ‘UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017’ (CCRA) [7] which highlighted specifically risks associated with flooding and coastal change being the highest priority (see Figure 2). Thought provokingly, the CCRA also presented an assessment of 56 risks mapped across five key areas: natural environment and natural assets, infrastructure, people and the built environment, business and industry, and international dimensions [7]. The urgency of the assessed risk for each of these areas were then bucketed across four groups (lowest to highest urgency): watching brief, sustain current action, research priority, and more action needed [7]. The breadth of this assessment compounding the far-reaching impact of environment and climate change across all aspects of society. 

It’s important also to note that although the risks to individual infrastructure sectors have been presented independently in Table 1, there are a significant number of interdependencies between infrastructure sectors [8]. Because of this, infrastructure failure in one sector can have cascading negative effects across any number of other infrastructure sectors [8].

Table 1 – Table taken from the NIC report exploring the risks to infrastructure resulting from climate variables [6].

Table 2 – Table taken from the NIC report explaining which infrastructure sectors are impacted by different climate variables [6].

Figure 2 – Figure from the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017 highlighting the highest risk factors to UK infrastructure [7].

Balancing Adaptation, Mitigation, and Avoidance

When considering climate change and its impact on the environment within which infrastructure and society operate, the balance between avoidance, mitigation and adaption need to be considered. 

Adaptation and Mitigation

Unfortunately, some amount of climate change is unavoidable; we are now paying for the decades of industrialisation that have ultimately shaped the world we live in today. Because of this, it is important to consider how infrastructure can be adapted to be resilient against environmental change, or in instances where this is not possible, how the levels of risks to infrastructure can be mitigated. 

A good example of infrastructure adaptation is in flood management for highly flood-prone areas. In these instances, a range of flood management measures can be implemented such as the creation/restoration of wetlands for floodwater storage, setting back of flood embankments, and the proactive management of soil runoff to slow the rate at which water flows into the watercourse [6]. While not an exhaustive list, each of these measures demonstrates how infrastructure can be adapted to cope with an increased risk of flooding due to climate change. 

From a mitigation perspective, and using the same example of flooding, an alternative option may be the strategic retreat of communities away from areas where flood infrastructure adaptation is cost-prohibitive. While mitigation is the less preferable option, it is important to acknowledge that, as with any element of infrastructure, there is a cost-to-benefit ratio that needs to be maintained. It is unsustainable and inefficient to invest in expensive infrastructure adaptation if the benefit is only to a few people. Flooding is only one example where this balance must be considered. 

Avoidance

Avoidance, as opposed to adaptation and mitigation, describes proactive action that seeks to either avoid the impact of environmental change or avoid the environmental change happening altogether. While in both cases, holistic avoidance is impossible, we can, for example, avoid a global 2-degree increase in temperature through heavy investment in green technologies and decarbonisation.  

The Thames Barrier, for example, represents a piece of infrastructure designed to avoid and protect against the impact of short-term and (increasingly) long-term fluctuations in sea level [9]. Arguably, investing in avoiding the impact of environmental change is, albeit sometimes necessary, a comparatively short-sighted solution. On the other hand, investing in renewable energy, green mobility, and driving a net-zero carbon agenda to avoid the most extreme consequences of climate change is a longer-term and likely more cost-effective option. 

Ultimately, there is no single, instant or complete solution to either making infrastructure absolutely resilient to the effects of environment change or avoiding climate change altogether. Instead, as the narrative has been across the previous sections of this report, a considered and strategic approach must be taken to dealing with each element of infrastructure. 

References

[1] United Nations, “Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,” 1998. [Online]. Available: https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.pdf.

[2] United Nations, “The Paris Agreement,” 2015. [Online]. Available: https://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/convention/application/pdf/english_paris_agreement.pdf.

[3 United Nations, “THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development,” 2015. https://sdgs.un.org/goals (accessed Nov. 20, 2020).

[4] Department for Business Energy & Industrial Strategy, “UK becomes first major economy to pass net zero emissions law - GOV.UK,” 2019. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-becomes-first-major-economy-to-pass-net-zero-emissions-law (accessed Nov. 20, 2020).

[5] Iberdrola, “International Agreements on Climate Change,” n.d. https://www.iberdrola.com/environment/international-agreements-on-climate-change (accessed Nov. 20, 2020).

[6] National Infrastructure Commission, “The Impact of the Environment and Climate Change on Future Infrastructure Supply and Demand,” 2017. [Online]. Available: https://nic.org.uk/studies-reports/national-infrastructure-assessment/national-infrastructure-assessment-1/the-impact-of-the-environment-and-climate-change-on-future-infrastructure-supply-and-demand/.

[7] Committee on Climate Change, “UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017,” 2016. [Online]. Available: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-climate-change-risk-assessment-2017.

[8] National Infrastructure Commission, “Anticipate, react, recover,” no. May, 2020, [Online]. Available: https://nic.org.uk/app/uploads//Anticipate-React-Recover-28-May-2020.pdf.

[9] UK Environmental Agency, “TE2100 Plan,” 2012. [Online]. Available: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/322061/LIT7540_43858f.pdf.