Society requires infrastructure to support most human activities; this includes electric power, oil and gas, water and wastewater, communications, transport, and the buildings that make up urban and rural communities. These structures and networks deliver essential services, provide shelter, and support social interactions and economic development.

Civil infrastructure systems involve design, analysis, and management. In the past, sophisticated design methods have been developed and implemented in a world which was regarded as ‘stationary’. That is, the climatic conditions were variable but not subject to changes in the average parameters within the lifetime of the structure or development in question. However, it has been clear for some time that this is no longer the case. Our climate is changing, and previous design policy criteria must change to adapt to this. (IPCC, 2014a,b). Climate change is now a significant issue and its effect on the natural and built environment must be addressed by civil engineers and other disciplines, whatever the drivers of climate change.

Civil engineers have always been engaged in designing, building, operating and maintaining long-life infrastructure, some of which lasts for hundreds of years. But building and maintaining long-life infrastructure assets in the face of a changing climate is a relatively new challenge. Design and maintenance standards for weather resilience, where they exist, often refer to the past when it comes to weather and climate. Even the structural design Eurocodes do not account for future weather and climate impacts. However, with increasingly visible weather impacts, not least the recent damage to Whaley Bridge dam and Dawlish sea wall in the UK, a growing number of engineering organisations are now actively planning for the impacts of climate change.

There is an awareness that civil engineers and allied professions need to take a more proactive role. A key issue is that civil engineers should be using simple risk assessments to address the hazards to and from projects, particularly the incremental global impacts from short-term emissions. They then need to have confidence to help society with the approaching climate emergencies (Thorniley-Walker, 2020).

In July 2019, BSI published a new British standard to provide a good practice approach to climate change adaptation. BS EN ISO 14090 (BSI, 2019) describes principles, requirements and guidelines for adaptation to climate change for organisations and their projects. These include managing climate risks, integrating adaptation into ‘business as usual’ within or across organisations and helping organisations to identify and understand impacts and uncertainties, and how these can be used to inform decisions. Creating a good adaptation plan also helps organisations to report adaptation actions.

This ROCK examines climate change impacts on hard and soft infrastructure in terms of changes in rainfall, flooding, sea level rise and temperature and focusses on impacts related to water issues. Attention has been focussed mainly on UK conditions and impacts, except where issues are more relevant in other parts of the world. Clearly, climate change is a global phenomenon.

In Chapter 2 global climate change and its drivers are reviewed.

Chapter 3 describes the environmental changes expected.

The potential impacts are discussed in Chapter 4.

Chapters 5 to 10 explore specific problems associated with bridges, construction materials, dams, coastal issues, urban drainage and drought.

The future is considered in Chapter 11.

Reference should be made to the literature to seek a deeper understanding. A section on further sources of information is provided to enable further reading.

Copies of the ROCK are available from the Foundation, price £15.00, less 20% to FWR members

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