Adapting to a changing climate

TII Climate Adaptation Strategy

In 2019, Ireland declared that the nation is in a Climate and Biodiversity Emergency, with the impacts of climate change being increasingly felt across the country. To address this, the Irish Government developed a Climate Action Plan (CAP) 2021. The CAP 2021 set a requirement for Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) to publish an updated strategy on how it will adapt its networks in the face of a changing climate. This Climate Adaptation Strategy is TII’s response to CAP 2021 Action 297 - Improve climate resilience and adapt to climate change on the Light Rail and National Road Network. 

TII’s assets and activities are vulnerable to extreme weather events; the severity and frequency of these events is increasing with climate change. For example, flooding, storms and heatwaves can damage assets and cause service disruption, which can result in significant safety, financial and reputational impacts. TII must continue to adopt a proactive approach to managing the impacts of climate change, to prevent the worst of these impacts and avoid relying on costly reactive measures. This Strategy builds on TII’s previous Climate Adaptation Strategy, published in 2017, and sets out the approach and next steps required over the coming years to continue adapting to the impacts of climate change.

The construction and maintenance of national road and light rail infrastructure has taken on a new dimension in the last decade as a result of a global coordination of climatic models and predicted changes in climatic parameters. Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) is adapting and developing strategies for various extreme climatic events that will impact the national road and light rail network. Climatic factors such as increases in rainfall intensities have been factored into the design of national road schemes for several years. However, the main challenges facing TII, in relation to the national road network, relate to the fact that a large proportion of the network consists of “legacy” roads evolved from historic routes that are often constrained by physical or environmental conditions. 
 
The Dublin light rail transit system (Luas) is constructed on the city’s roads and is, therefore, prone to many of the same extreme climatic factors impacting the national roads.
Impacts from a changing climate in Ireland may not be as severe as those predicted in other European countries but they are likely to include more frequent flooding, increased risk of landslides, pavement degradation and potential storm damage.
 
This strategy for adapting to climate change on Ireland’s light rail and national road network outlines TII’s strategy in relation to adapting to climate change and extreme weather events.