Building Resilient Communities URS Group Inc. 2010 ASFPM National Conference May 2010 Effectively Adapting to Climate Change

Building Resilient Communities

URS Group Inc.

2010 ASFPM National Conference

May 2010

Effectively Adapting to Climate Change

Building Resilient Communities – Effectively Adapting to Climate Change

Agenda

What is a resilient community?

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Understanding the climate challenge

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Applications of resilience to regional planning and climate change adaptation

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Lessons learned from Hillsborough County, FL

What is a Resilient Community?


What is a Resilient Community?1

Resilience… - Is the capability to anticipate risk, limit impact, and bounce back

rapidly through survival, adaptability, evolution, and growth in the face of turbulent change

Resilient communities…- Should be able to avoid the cascading system failures to help

minimize any disaster's disruption to everyday life and the local economy

- Have the ability to quickly return citizens to work, reopen businesses, and restore other essential services needed for a full and swift economic recovery

1. Source: Community and Regional Resilience Institute (CARRI), http://www.resilientus.org/


Community Resiliency Characteristics

Includes various social, economic, infrastructure, environmental, and institutional components

These components need to be in balance and grow coherently over time


Climate Change and Transportation Resiliency

Possible climate change impacts:- Rising temperatures

- Rising sea levels

- Hydrologic changes

- Shifts in weather patterns

Transportation resiliency issues- System capacity

• Managing, maintaining and constructing new infrastructure

• Continuity of flow – personal, business and commercial travel

- Travel demand

• Increases in population

• Demographic shifts

• Energy availability

• Changes in travel behavior – modal shifts

- Land use and economic development

• Development policies and pattern shifts

• Health and quality of life attitude shifts

- Environmental

• Streamlining

• Air quality improvements

• Energy consumption reductions

Understanding theClimate Challenge


Powerful storms and other natural hazards already wreak havoc today

Since 1953, there have been a total of 1,907 disaster declarations (an average of 33 a year)2

There has been a surge in economic losses from natural disasters in recent years,3 from $50 billion in the 1950s to $800 billion in the 1990s

Coastal U.S. cities have incurred some of the more significant losses due to hurricane events (i.e., Hugo, Fran, Katrina, and Ike)

2. FEMA - http://www.fema.gov/news/disaster_totals_annual.fema

3. Resilient Coasts – A Blueprint for Action. April 2009. The Heinz Institute. http://www.heinzctr.org/publications/PDF/Resilient_Coasts_Blueprint_Final.pdf


Key challenges for planners and engineers

Range of hazards- Unpredictability of occurrence

- Uncertainty of severity of impact

Critical infrastructure/node identification- Robustness

• Protection, maintenance, replacement

- Redundancy

Incorporating climate change science and risk management into regional planning

Funding for required investments

Source of Image: http://mceer.buffalo.edu/publications/bulletin/06/20-01/images/katrina2bridges-lg.jpg

Applications of Resilience to Regional Planning and Climate Change Adaptation


Considering resilience as part of the regional transportation planning process

Developing a coordinated, analytical process with metropolitan planning organizations and state departments of transportation- Meeting travel demand through long-range multi-modal planning

and programming

• Considering the impacts of a range of threats on the transportation system

• Understanding the potential impact of climate change on travel demand, modal assignments, and strategic capital investments

- Creating an inventory of critical infrastructure

- Advancing asset management in the context of system redundancy and robustness

- Ensuring safe and secure system-wide and modal operations


Other Bridges

Critical BridgeConnections

Utilities

Economic Impact

On-Water Storage Areas

IntermodalFacilities

High

Low

Light Severe

Ferry Systems

Moderate

Sample risk assessment of critical infrastructure and key resources

Resiliency


Looking at resilience beyond the current environment

Developing climate change/transportation tools to support analysis and decision-making- Periodic regional threat and vulnerability assessments

• Identifying and modifying an applicable methodology

• Ensuring ease of use

- Identifying range of appropriate and affordable protective measures

• Risk calculus – what are acceptable levels of risk

• Benefit cost analysis

• Travel demand modeling and sensitivity analyses

• Plans and policies



Advancing projects into regional and statewide Transportation Improvement Programs- Selecting investment prioritization criteria

- Assigning appropriate weight to climate change and resiliency

Identifying and implementing adaptation strategies- Relocating infrastructure

- Adding transportation redundancy

- Modifying land use policies in vulnerable geographical areas

- Increasing the mix of energy generation – renewables, etc.

- Changes in building codes



Assessing the relationship of advance transportation technologies (e.g., Intelligent Transportation Systems) to climate change and enhancing infrastructure resiliency

- Shift in investments from capital improvements to technology

- Increasing emphasis on real time information exchanges and creating situational awareness to manage the transportation system

Expanding regional coordination as part of long range transportation planning to include interdependent sectors and stakeholders

- Energy

- Communications

- Water

- Emergency management

- Law enforcement



Regularly re-evaluate the impacts of climate change as part of the regional transportation planning process

• As better science becomes available

• As threats and vulnerabilities are reassessed

• As policy decisions are made

• As knowledge of how infrastructure and people will react/adapt to climate change impacts emerges

Determining what changes need to be made with regards to plans, policies, regulations and capital investments

Recent Trends in Regional Transportation Planning


Legislative and Regulatory Requirements Affecting Regional Transportation Planning

Air quality and transportation planning- Conformity analyses for non-attainment areas

• Tests, using analytical models, the relationship between travel demand and air quality

• Planning process also considers demographics and economics, and jurisdictional and institutional issues

• Influences direction of regional planning and capital investment selection

Security and emergency management - SAFETEA-LU calls for MPOs to incorporate security and emergency

management into its long range transportation plans

• Creates an additional dimension and rationale for assessing short and long-term capital investment needs

• Requires identifying critical infrastructure, nodes and resources; where resiliency and redundancy is necessary

• Provides additional insight on how to manage the transportation system when responding to an event


Possible next steps for climate change and regional transportation

Role of threat and vulnerability assessments- Adaptation of a methodology to be applied at the regional level

- Determining the frequency an assessment is completed

- Translating finding into protective measures that enhance transportation resiliency

System performance and critical infrastructure- Establishing a level of system performance to be maintained

- Establishing criteria for identifying and classifying critical infrastructure

- Identifying the short and long term vulnerabilities of the infrastructure

Assessing system disruptions- Modifying regional travel demand models

- Conducting travel demand sensitivity models

- Identifying alternatives, additional capacity


Possible next steps for climate change and regional transportation

Long range transportation and land use plan development- Add a climate change adaptation chapter in plan(s)- Identify relevant adaptations - Re-assess ITS architecture- Determine its relationship to the system’s safety, security, and emergency

management- Limit development of areas that could become vulnerable- Plan and budget for relocation of vulnerable population

Transportation Improvement Program- Develop a climate change adaptation criteria for advancing projects toward

implementation- Build for more severe hazard events (enhance the robustness of the built

environment)

Asset management practices- Develop criteria for prioritizing/ staging maintenance- Developing new management systems


Moving in a new direction: Hillsborough County MPO – Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP)

Added security/emergency management chapter based on, providing a basis for incorporating climate change and resiliency considerations:- Evaluation of relevant hazards and threats

- Identification of critical facilities and nodes within the regional transportation network

- Review of issues related to climate change impacts on transportation infrastructure

- Prioritization of vulnerabilities

- Recommendation of appropriate mitigation measures for the identified vulnerabilities


- Integration of LRTP efforts with post-disaster recovery planning activities and strategies (both efforts support community and regional resilience)

- Brought together diverse stakeholder groups – public works, regional transit, regional planning commission, and emergency managers to identify and prioritize critical infrastructure

- As a result, modified the LRTP project prioritization process (from which projects are funded) to account for transportation security and emergency management issues

- Integrated security and emergency management as a component of the regional transportation planning process on a continuous basis

Hillsborough County MPO – Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP)


Mainstreaming Climate Change and Resiliency into Regional Planning and Projects

Actively promote climate change and resiliency in the identification, planning, design, negotiation, and implementation of strategies, policies, programs, and projects across agencies and sectors

Consider climate change and resiliency in the earliest stages of the decision-making cycle, when regional challenges and proposed interventions are framed

Increase understanding of how initiatives outside the narrowly defined “physical security measures” can be designed to support regional climate change and resiliency

Target investments that enhance the robustness, resourcefulness, and recovery of the region while also achieving its core objectives


Thank You

For More Information Contact Bob Brodesky

[email protected] 383-3834

mailto:[email protected]

Documents

Building Resilient Communities URS Group Inc. 2010 ASFPM National Conference May 2010 Effectively Adapting to Climate Change