Office of Planning, Environment, & Realty (HEP)
Planning • Environment • Real Estate
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The WSDOT Study
The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) assessed the infrastructure it owns, including roads, rail, ferry facilities, and airports. The WSDOT held workshops around the State, presenting information on climate projections and asking maintenance engineers and other employees with intimate familiarity with the assets, "What keeps you up at night?" to help identify current vulnerabilities that may be exacerbated in the future.
The New Jersey Study
The New Jersey project was led by the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority and was supported by an interagency partnership, including the three New Jersey MPOs, the New Jersey Department of Transportation, New Jersey Transit, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and the New Jersey State Climatologist. The pilot closely followed the three steps of the Conceptual Risk Assessment Model in its analysis of the New Jersey Turnpike/I-95 corridor and the New Jersey Coast.
The OahuMPO Study
The Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) used an interagency, multidisciplinary 2-day workshop to facilitate a climate change dialog and identify five key vulnerable assets for further study. The five assets were then assessed in more detail by transportation experts in three full-day work sessions.
The Virginia Study
The University of Virginia developed a priority setting tool to assess how consideration of climate change and other factors may affect project prioritization in a transportation plan. The State used the Hampton Roads region as a case study.
The San Francisco Study
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, in partnership with the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the California Department of Transportation District 4, and others, led a study of a portion of the Bay, stretching from the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to the San Mateo Bridge (Alameda County). This study was focused on sea level rise. The project team developed profiles of risk to sea level rise for a list of representative and unique assets within the study area, including exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity.
To better understand potential climate change impacts on transportation infrastructure and identify adaptation strategies, the US DOT is conducting a comprehensive, multi-phase study of climate change impacts in the Central Gulf Coast region. This region is home to a complex multimodal network of transportation infrastructure and several large population centers, and it plays a critical national economic role in the import and export of oil and gas, agricultural products, and other goods. The study is sponsored by the US DOT's Center for Climate Change and Environmental Forecasting in partnership with the USGS and is managed by the FHWA.
Gulf Coast Phase 1
Phase 1 (completed in 2008) examined the impacts of climate change on transportation infrastructure at a regional scale, investigating risks and impacts on coastal ports, road, air, rail, and public transit systems in the central Gulf Coast, with a study area stretching from Houston/Galveston, Texas, to Mobile, Alabama. The study assessed likely changes in temperature and precipitation patterns, sea-level rise, and increasing severity and frequency of tropical storms. Phase 1 then explored how these changes could impact transportation systems.
Gulf Coast Phase 2
Phase 2 focuses on the Mobile, Alabama, region -- with the goal of enhancing regional decisionmakers' ability to understand potential impacts on specific critical components of infrastructure and to evaluate adaptation options. In Mobile, the U.S. DOT is assessing the vulnerability of the most critical transportation assets to climate change impacts. The U.S. DOT will then develop risk management tools to help transportation system planners, owners, and operators determine which systems and assets to protect and how to do so. The methods and tools developed under Phase 2 are intended to be replicable to other regions throughout the country. Phase 2 is scheduled to be completed in 2013.
