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How Are Agencies Making the Transportation System More Resilient?

Transportation authorities around the world are grappling with ways to deal with the effects of rising sea level and extreme weather events. These events are more frequent and intense, and often cause flooding and destruction of transportation infrastructure.
Two invited speakers at Volpe, The National Transportation Systems Center, provided valuable information for transportation professionals. Volpe's speaker series, Transportation System Resilience, Extreme Weather, and Climate Change brings together distinguished experts to discuss challenges, opportunities, and fresh approaches related to these pressing issues.

Dr. Klaus H. Jacob

Dr. Klaus H. Jacob, one of TIME Magazine’s People Who Mattered in 2012, spoke about his efforts to model the effects of a hypothetical coastal storm with a 100-year storm surge on New York City.
Hurricane Sandy, which struck the northeast in October 2012, was very similar to the storm Dr. Jacob modeled and caused nearly the same effects that he had predicted. As a result, New York public officials, aware of Dr. Jacob’s research, proactively shut down the subway system and erected barriers at some locations to mitigate some of the worst effects of flooding.
Dr. Jacob, a geophysicist and special research scientist at Columbia University, discussed his approach to modeling storm surge and transportation impacts, displaying many of the flood projection maps that were widely available in the popular media.
Key lessons learned from Dr. Jacob’s work are that it is possible to anticipate the effects of extreme weather events with a high level of fidelity, and through preparation, it is possible to mitigate some of the effects.
Dr. Jacob noted that officials within different transportation modes need to take into account sea level rise and climate change when developing strategic plans. His research indicates that sea level rise will accelerate by about six feet by the end of the century.
He argued that transportation systems need to be designed and retrofitted to be adaptively resilient. Until systems become adaptively resilient, robust operational emergency plans and temporary protection measures must be readied for use on very short notice.
“We cannot afford to do nothing,” Dr. Jacob said. He believes that the incurred economic losses resulting from future storms similar to Hurricane Sandy will be four to ten times greater than the costs of implementing transportation resiliency measures.