Abstract

Climate Change Proofing of Infrastructure
Track: Water, Wastewater, and Stormwater
Authors: Torben Jensen, Jorgen Neilsen, Ole Mark

Cities - in particular coastal cities - need to adapt their infrastructure to climate change. Climate change will hit first and foremost through the water. Raising sea levels in combination with changes in the precipitation patterns as well as storm patterns will stress the infrastructure not least through increased flooding. There is a need for methods that allow public as well as private organizations to assess the risks and evaluate the cost/benefits (and side effects) of different adaptation measures. Such methods require the linking of GIS with climate model projections and with simulation models which are able to simulate the interactions between the different sources of flooding, including tidal and storm surges, river flooding, flooding from local rainfall and potentially flooding from the groundwater. This session describes specific cases where such climate adaptation methods and integrated GIS and simulation tools have been used.