Erosion Hazards in River Catchments: Making Critical Infrastructure More Climate Resilient

社会已经进入了一个气候变化的新时代，人们正在直接观察和体验气候变暖的环境后果。可以说，气候变化对关键基础设施的最严重影响将是风暴的频率和严重程度增加，导致更极端的侵蚀事件。侵蚀灾害的影响具有国家战略意义，因为它们涉及面广、代价高昂，而且对资产的脆弱性至关重要。在英国，这些灾害每年造成3.36亿英镑的额外洪灾损失，是相当大的水污染来源，每年的总成本为2.38亿英镑，并使水处理和排水网络维护的成本每年增加1.32亿英镑。它们对桥梁、防洪设施和电塔等基础设施造成相当大的破坏，并占有效下沉保险索赔的25%。因此，创建有弹性的、可持续的基础设施取决于对未来变化的侵蚀危害及其影响的潜在风险的了解。然而，目前还不存在侵蚀风险的预测模型框架，因此我们不了解：-对关键基础设施构成的未来风险--这些资产在不断变化的气候中面对更频繁和更严重的侵蚀风险的脆弱性和弹性有多大因此，决策者目前面临着关于缓解战略的问题，这些问题很难回答：(1)在哪里采取行动使资产更具弹性？(2)当需要采取行动时：现在还是可以推迟投资？这一可行性项目旨在通过创建一种新的计算机模型来提供这些问题的答案，以量化未来气候情景将如何影响河流流域侵蚀灾害的频率和严重程度以及关键资产的脆弱性，以及我们如何最好地减轻其影响。将进行新的风险分析，以创建一种新的决策支持工具，为决策提供连贯有力的证据基础。这种方法最终将使利益攸关方能够评估他们将如何应对侵蚀危害，并加强其缓解战略，为我们的社会提供更多好处；降低灾害成本，提高关键基础设施对气候变化的复原力。这些成果将包括：-对气候预测导致的英国各地不断变化的侵蚀风险的科学见解-侵蚀灾害如何影响关键基础设施对不断变化的气候的脆弱性和恢复力-一个集成的定量预测模型框架和决策支持工具，为可持续、有弹性的决策提供亟需的强有力的证据基础-加深科学家、利益攸关方、行业和非政府组织之间的接触。

Society has entered a new era of climate change where the environmental consequences of warming are being observed and experienced directly. Arguably the most severe impacts of climate change on critical infrastructure will be an increase in the frequency and severity of storms, leading to more extreme erosion events. The impacts of erosion hazards are of strategic national importance because they are wide ranging, costly and critical to the vulnerability of assets. In the UK these hazards cause £336M a year in extra flood damage, are a considerable source of water pollution totalling costs of £238M a year, and increase the costs of water treatment and maintenance of drainage networks by £132M a year. They cause considerable damage to infrastructure such as bridges, flood defences and electricity pylons, and account for 25% of valid subsidence insurance claims. Thus creating resilient, sustainable infrastructure depends on understanding the potential future risks of changing erosion hazards and their impact. Yet at present, no predictive modelling framework exists for erosion hazards, and therefore we do not understand:- The future risks posed to critical infrastructure- How vulnerable and resilient these assets will be to increased frequency and severity of erosion hazards in a changing climateThus decision makers currently face questions about mitigation strategies that are very difficult to answer: (1) Where to act to make an asset more resilient? (2) When action is required: now or can investment be postponed? This feasibility project aims to provide answers to these questions by creating a new computer model to quantify how future climate scenarios will affect the frequency and severity of erosion hazards in river catchments and the vulnerability of key assets and how we might best mitigate their impact. New risk analyses will be produced to create a novel decision-support tool to provide a coherent robust evidence base for decision making. This approach will ultimately allow stakeholders to assess how they will respond to erosion hazards and enhance their mitigation strategies to provide more benefits for our societies; reducing hazard costs and improving the resilience of critical infrastructure to climate change. The outputs will include:- Scientific insights into the changing erosion risk across the UK as a result of climate projections- How erosion hazards influence the vulnerability and resilience of critical infrastructure to a changing climate- An integrated quantitative predictive modelling framework and decision-support tool that provides the much needed strong evidence base for sustainable, resilient decision making- Deepened engagement between scientists, stakeholders, industry, and NGOs.