Transportation Research Board Reports on Potential Impacts of Climate Change on U.S. Transportation

The report provides transportation professionals with an overview of the scientific consensus on the current and future climate changes of particular relevance to U.S. transportation, including the limits of present scientific understanding as to their precise timing, magnitude, and geographic location. It also identifies potential impacts on U.S. transportation and adaptation options and offers recommendations for both research and actions that can be taken to prepare for climate change.

In addition, the report summarizes previous work on strategies for reducing transportation-related emissions of carbon dioxide that contribute to climate change, an area in which more research has been done.

Climate Change's Greatest Impact on Transport Would be Coastal Flooding

Climate change will affect transportation primarily through increases in several types of weather and climate extremes.

The potentially greatest impact of climate change on North America's transportation system will be flooding of coastal roads, railways, transit systems, and runways because of a global rise in sea level coupled with storm surge and exacerbated in some locations by land subsidence. However, the report states that the vulnerability of transportation infrastructure to climate change will extend well beyond coastal areas.

Critical Infrastructure Should be Inventoried, Etc.

The TRB recommends that federal, state, and local governments, in collaboration with owners and operators of infrastructure such as ports and airports and private railroad and pipeline companies, inventory critical transportation infrastructure to identify whether, when, and where projected climate changes in particular regions might be consequential.

The report outlines a decision framework for transportation professionals to use in addressing the impacts of climate change on U.S. transportation infrastructure, as follows:

1. Assess how climate changes are likely to affect various regions of the country and modes of transportation.
2. Inventory transportation infrastructure essential to maintaining network performance in light of climate change projections to determine whether, when, and where their impacts could be consequential.
3. Analyze adaptation options to assess the trade-offs between making the infrastructure more robust and the costs involved. Consider monitoring as an option.
4. Determine investment priorities, taking into consideration criticality of the infrastructure components as well as opportunities for multiple benefits (e.g., congestion relief, removal of evacuation route bottlenecks).
5. Develop and implement a program of adaptation strategies for the near and long terms.
6. Periodically assess the effectiveness of adaptation strategies.

(The TRB is one of six major divisions of the National Research Council and engages engineers, scientists, and other transportation researchers and practitioners from the public and private sectors and academia, all of whom contribute their expertise in the public interest.

The TRB program is supported by state transportation departments, federal agencies including the component administrations of the U.S. Department of Transportation, and other organizations and individuals interested in the development of transportation.)

TRB report summary (dated March 2008) available at http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/sr/sr290summary.pdf

Full report (234 pgs.) available at http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/sr/sr290.pdf