Climate Change and infrastructure, urban systems and vulnerabilities

A central theme of the report is that climate change vulnerabilities and impacts of urban infrastructure are issues beyond physical infrastructures themselves. The concern is with the value of services provided by infrastructures, where the true consequences of impacts and disruptions involve not only the costs associated with the clean-up, repair, and/or replacement of affected infrastructures but also economic, social, and environmental effects as supply chains are disrupted, economic activities are suspended, and/or social well-being is threatened. The report includes substantial sections on “framing climate change implications for infrastructures and urban systems to climate change,” considering both sensitivities to climate change and linkages among infrastructures, and on “urban systems as place-based foci for infrastructure interactions.” These sections are followed by sections on implications for risk management strategies, research gaps, and developing a self-sustained assessment capacity for the longer term. The geographic focus of the report is U.S., including also examples and cases from other countris, among them European.