With more extreme storms, floods, droughts, heatwaves and deep chills being widely predicted, civil engineers are responsible for keeping infrastructure working.
To plan and prepare for climate change, policy makers and regulators must understand which elements of infrastructure need the most work. But according to the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) the UK does not even have a proper handle on the adequacy of its existing infrastructure. Much of the UK’s infrastructure has been designed based on historical needs and predictions that are now out of date because of climate change.
To create a plan, government and industry need more information, the ICE says.
The ICE’s recommendations are contained in a report out today called How can the UK’s infrastructure system be made more climate resilient?
The ICE’s top recommendation is to make it mandatory for all infrastructure owners and operators to report on the likely current and future impacts of climate change on their organisation and/or assets, and their proposals for adapting those assets under the Climate Change Act.
Currently, under the same act, this adaptation reporting is optional, and the information received is mainly qualitative. This makes it difficult for government and regulators to compare different infrastructure systems’ varying degrees of readiness.
The report says that the scale of the problem means that government and industry will not be able to address every issue quickly. Priorities have to be determined and disruption during works has to be accepted.
Stantec director David Smith, chair of the ICE’s sustainable resilient infrastructure community advisory board, and Senior Vice President, said: “We need to adapt our infrastructure for climate change as soon as possible, because we know conditions are going to become more extreme. To plan how to do that, we need a clear picture of what our vulnerabilities are.
“Once we understand the true condition of all of our infrastructure system, industry, government, and regulators can work together to prioritise adaptation measures.
“However, the public needs to know it won’t all be a quick fix. Government and infrastructure owners need to communicate clearly about why we need to adapt our most at-risk infrastructure first, and how this could potentially impact overall service levels.”
The ICE report comes ahead of the government publishing its third National Adaptation Programme later this year, which will set out a five-year action plan to adapt to the challenges of climate change.
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