Critical Transportation Assets, and Sensitivity to Climate Change

1. Critical Transportation Assets, and Sensitivity to Climate Change Gulf Coast Study, Phase 2: Impacts of Climate Change and Variability on Transportation Systems & Infrastructure FHWA Office of Planning Environment and Realty May 4, 2010

2. Purpose of Today’s Meeting • Provide overview of Tasks 1 & 2 within the context of the project • Introduce proposed plan for identifying: • Critical transportation assets (Task 1) • Mobile-relevant climate information (Task 2) • Sensitivity of critical assets to climate (Task 2) • Discuss process for obtaining input and feedback from the Climate Work Group

3. Overview of GC2 Project • Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems • Task 2: Evaluate Climate Change Effects and Stressors • Task 3: Determining Vulnerability of Key Links and Assets • Task 4: Develop Risk Assessment &Risk Management Tools • Task 5: Coordination with Planning Authorities and Outreach • Task 6: Information Dissemination

4. Overview of GC2 Project (cont’d) • Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems • Which assets in Mobile are most important? • Task 2: Climate Impacts • How do we determine the likely effects of climate change on Mobile? • How could these changes in climate affect the critical transportation infrastructure? • Tasks 1 and 2 feed into Task 3 • Task 3: Determining Vulnerability of Key Links and Assets

5. Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems What is “critical” infrastructure in the Mobile region? Need to define a process applicable to Highways, Rail, Airports, Ports, Pipelines, and Transit

6. Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems What Is the Purpose of This Effort? Determine Subset of Entire Transportation Network on Which to Perform Vulnerability Assessment and Identify Adaptive Measures

7. Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems Access to Employment Centers, Hospitals, etc. Connecting Mobile To the Region and Nation Distribution CentersMultimodal Centers Key Aspects of Critical Infrastructure Connections Purpose Function Includes public and private services, facilities, and infrastructure

8. Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems Operational Considerations • Identify the components of critical infrastructure from a modal perspective • Functional Classification • Usage • Operations and Maintenance • Freight Route • Control and Enforcement Centers • Hazardous Materials

9. Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems Emergency Preparedness • Emergency evacuation • Disaster relief • Disaster recovery Both severe events and longer- term environmental changes are considered

10. Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems Socio-Economic Assessment • Serves Regional Centers • Availability of Redundant System • Provides Community Connection Infrastructure Important to the Functioning of the Region

11. Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems RAIL Measuring Criticality Matrices for eachinfrastructure mode

12. Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems HIGHWAYS Measuring Criticality Matrices for eachinfrastructure mode

13. Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems PORTS Measuring Criticality Matrices for eachinfrastructure mode

14. Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems AIRPORTS Measuring Criticality Matrices for eachinfrastructure mode

15. Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems TRANSIT Measuring Criticality Matrices for eachinfrastructure mode

16. Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems PIPELINES Measuring Criticality Matrices for eachinfrastructure mode

17. Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems Bringing it All Together • Applying critical infrastructure tools: • Delineate important assets and gather data • Estimate future travel and economic activity • Solicit stakeholder input and develop a critical infrastructure consensus • Defining criticality excludes engineering and environmental considerations • Outputs Feed Assessment during Task 2 efforts

18. Task 1: Identify Critical Transportation Systems • ICF and PB will develop a preliminary list of critical assets • Review MPO Model & other available modal or special purpose models • Enhance models as needed to identify critical infrastructure & assess vulnerability • Re-run model as needed to test critical links (stress on system if one link down) • Review plans & programs, interview staff • Collect & review asset data & asset management tools in use • Score and rank critical assets • Send draft critical asset list to climate workgroup to request feedback

19. Task 2: Identify Climate Data • Collect, review, and summarize climate/weather data to develop datasets of past and future conditions • Observations and model projections • temperature • precipitation • winds • runoff • waves • sea level rise • storm surge • will examine changes in both means and extremes • Approach will be different than Phase I, e.g. • focused explicitly on Mobile • use of more advanced models (e.g., ADCIRC; downscaling) • provide near-term, mid-term, and end-of-century futures • One illustrative output will be GIS-based maps indicating potential inundation • incorporating: global sea level rise, local subsidence, LIDAR-based elevation, and storm surge modeling

20. Task 2: Identify Climate Sensitivity • Waterways • Airports • Bicycle and Pedestrian infrastructure • Public Transportation • Natural Gas and Oil Pipelines • Develop qualitative assessments of the sensitivity of critical transportation infrastructure and services in Mobile to climate • Parametric modeling – time series analysis • Analog analysis – assessment of extreme events. Guidance from the CC Work Group is requested. • Katrina (other?) • Heat wave (2007?) • Non-hurricane-related storm (?) • Infrastructure cost analysis • For this to be as useful as possible to Mobile we need relevant transportation data for: • Bridges • Highways • Tunnels • Railroads • Marine ports and terminals

21. Task 2: Identify Climate Sensitivity We need your help! Names, web sites, documents, etc. • Data types, e.g. • Asset value; replacement cost • Includes infrastructure and equipment • Maintenance and repair frequency and cost • Including in relation to other costs/values • Post-weather-event survey – damage estimate; service loss • Insurance claims • Asset monitoring – e.g. • Condition, projected life span, etc. • Travel information – e.g. • VMT, transit time, avg speed, accident data, etc. • Value and quantity of goods transported • roadway, marine, air, pipeline • Regional/national economic dependence on Mobile transportation • transportation through and out of the region

22. Data Needs: Task 1 vs. Task 2 • Tasks 1 and 2 will mostly rely on similar data, e.g.: • vehicle miles traveled • freight value • Some data will be exclusively for a specific task, e.g.: • Task 1—specific location • Task 2—historical damage to assets • Some data will later be useful for Task 3, e.g.: • Engineering specifications of a particular asset

23. Next Steps • Task 1: • Develop draft list of critical transportation assets in Mobile • Share list with Climate Work Group and ask for feedback • Task 2: • Follow up to pursue access to particular data • Interview key individuals regarding impacts from past weather events • Present preliminary results from sensitivity analysis to receive feedback from the Climate Work Group

24. Contact Rob Kafalenos Federal Highway Administration Office of Natural and Human Environment Sustainable Transport & Climate Change Team 202-366-2079 Robert.Kafalenos@dot.gov US DOT Transportation and Climate Change Clearinghouse: http://climate.dot.gov/index.html