Cities And Climate Change

How Cities Are Upgrading Infrastructure to Prepare for Climate Change; The threat of extreme weather and other climate-related events has city planners rethinking the stability of critical infrastructure

Mikhail Chester, Braden Allenby and Samuel Markolf, October 22, 2018 (The Conversation via Smithsonian)

“…[S]ome cities and municipalities are starting to recognize that past conditions [and infrastructure] can no longer serve as reasonable proxies for the future…Highways, water treatment facilities and the power grid are at increasing risk to [flooding, heat, wildfires, hurricanes and other] extreme weather events and other effects of a changing climate…The problem is that most infrastructure projects, including the Trump administration’s infrastructure revitalization plan, typically ignore the risks of climate change…[It must] shift toward designing man-made infrastructure systems with adaptability in mind…

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City planners and citizens often assume that what is built today will continue to function in the face of these hazards, allowing services to continue and to protect us as they have done so in the past. But these systems [like pumps. Transmission, and bridges] are designed based on histories of extreme events…[Events are now] more frequently exceeding these historical conditions and…natural systems are now changing faster than infrastructure…The problem is that the level of risk is now uncertain…Given this uncertainty, agility and flexibility should be central to our infrastructure design…[Alternatives that offer] resilience instead of risk should be central to infrastructure design and operation in the future…” click here for more

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