Transport sector in the EU Adaptation Strategy

1. Transport sector in the EU Adaptation Strategy Expert Workshop Adaptation in thetransportsector in EEA memberstates 23rdof May2013 Markus Leitner

2. Outline • Background • Adaptation Strategy – State of Play • Transport in the Adaptation Strategy • Further Needs

3. Project to support EU strategy • Preparation of the EU Adaptation Strategy was supported from December 2011 till February 2013 by the project contract “Support to the development of the EU strategy for adaptation to climate change” – EU AdaptStrat (CLIMA.C.3/SER/2011/0026) • Project team: • Environment Agency Austria (EAA): Project Lead • Fresh Thoughts Consulting (FT): Project Co-Lead • AEA Technology plc (AEA) • FEEM ServiziSrl (FEEM) • Alterra

4. EU Adaptation Strategy • Adopted on April 16th 2013 - Comprises the following objectives: • Promoting Action by MS - support & facilitate collaboration, knowledge exchange & best practices, etc. between MS, regions, cities and other stakeholders • Climate-proofing action at EU-level - Mainstreamingadaptation into policies, strategies and programmes • Enhancing the knowledgebase& widening information access – Climate-ADAPT

5. EU actionforadaptation in theTransport sector? Transport sector: Europe`s transport infrastructure impact on the well functioning of the European internal market transport infrastructure networks are often trans-boundary and therefore, coordination efforts for adaptation are required is characterized by long investment cycles and thus it should be conceived to increase resilience to the current and future adverse impacts of climate change The specific aspects of interest: focus on transport infrastructure, operation and partly on equipment four transport modes will be taken into account: rail, road, shipping (inland and ocean shipping, including ports) and aviation (airports) + specific issues on urban transport assess state of knowledge regarding climate impacts on transport sector as well as possible entry points into EU policies, strategies and programmes to foster mainstreaming (construction, transport and energy sector)

6. Main adverseeffectsofclimatechangefortransport Main adverse effects: • increase of summer heat, especially in Southern Europe • cold extremes will become rarer, with a substantial decrease in the north • change in precipitation patterns (magnitude and frequency) • e.g. decreasing snow events; however, extreme snowfall events are expected to become more frequent in some regions • increase of extreme weather events • decline in the probability of frost days and cold spell • for wind extremes, changes are fairly uncertain, with discrepancies among the climate models

7. Main impacts from climatic change onspecific transport modes • Roads: leading to higher risk of impacts on road pavement and instability of fundament as well as reduced life of asphalt road surfaces, drainage problems, etc. • Railways: leading to higher risk of track buckling, drainage problems, damage to the infrastructure (storms, floods), blocking or delay due to increasing amounts of snow, damage to power lines and control and signaling systems, etc. • Shipping: leading to higher risk of suspension of navigation, damage to the inland waterway infrastructure, reduced discharge and low water might decrease load factors and increasing costs, etc. • Aviation: leading to higher risk of damage to infrastructure, but positive aspects might occur such as increasing need of de-icing, etc.

8. Transport in the Adaptation Strategy Impacts of extreme weather events affect transport sector already today • in the past, precipitation in its various forms caused the most damage to transport • costs of past weather events on the transport sector amount to 2.5 billion Euro yearly (average year 2000 to 2010) (Enei et al. 2011) • highest damage costs are found for road infrastructure (roughly 1.8 billion Euro annually)

9. Overview on critical weather phenomena, their occurrence by region with the most affected modes of transport (EWENT project) (Leviakangas et al., 2011)

10. Change in average costs due to weather extremes by 2010-2050 (Fraunhofer ISI, in Trinks et al. 2012) Source: PESETA-Human healthstudy, Watkiss et al, 2009

11. Identifiedknowledgegaps • Climate change adaptation and aviation needs to be further assessed in detail • Aggregated cost to transport systems from CC covering all impacts and all Europe • Costing of adaptation options, e.g. retrofitting railway bridges, usage of more heat resistant rail material, changes in stress free temperature standards for rails, retrofitting train air conditioning systems, climate-proofing of road bridges, etc. • More technical knowledge is particularly necessary to be able to suggest concrete amendments in standards and regulation • Mapping of relevant standards at European, national and business level

12. Relevant researchprojectmighthelptoclosesomeoftheknowledgegaps • EWENT: Extreme weather events on EU networks of transport (2010-2012; FP7) • WEATHER: Weather Extremes – Impacts on Transport Systems and Hazards for European Regions (2010-2012; FP7) • ECCONET: Effects of climate change on the inland waterway networks (2010-2012; FP7) • PARAmount: imProved Accessibility: Reliability and security of Alpine transport infrastructure related to mountainous hazards in a changing climate (2007-2013; Alpine Space Programme)

13. Contact: Markus Leitner Environmental Impact Assessment and Climate Change T: +43-(0)1-313 04/3536 markus.leitner@umweltbundesamt.at Andrea Prutsch T: +43-(0)1-313 04/3462 Andrea.prutsch@umweltbundesamt.at Thankyou!!!