National Roads Climate Impact Study

Client:

Confidential

Project Type:

Climate Resilience

Location:

United States

Key Takeaways

National Road Budgets Are Insufficient

The threat to roads from temperature fluctuations, increased precipitation and freeze-thaw cycles renders existing budgets insufficient.

A National Impact To Infrastructure

The impacts of changing conditions are evident in every geographic area, with cities like Chicago and New York facing significant challenges.

Roads Are Overextended In Design Life

The design life of many thousands of miles of roads has been exceeded, resulting in increased climate impacts.

About the Project

Analyzing Environmental Risks on US Road Infrastructure

The national road system in the United States comprises multiple levels of roads, from highways to local neighborhoods. Anticipating changing environmental conditions due to climate change, the EPA established a research objective to analyze the potential cost impacts and adaptation options for highways, as well as primary and secondary roads within the national road system.

Resilient Analytics served as the technical consultant for this effort to determine the national risk to roads from temperature changes, precipitation and freeze-thaw cycles. The team was tasked with delivering reactive and adaptation cost estimates for each region. This included evaluating the return on investment for each region and identifying the primary risk factors for each type of road.

Resilient Analytics developed analysis functions to rapidly assess threats to various types of roads from multiple climate factors. Leveraging its unique capability to study large asset inventories, Resilient Analytics modeled each road to determine the level of potential threat, the cost of adaptation and the timeframe for required adaptations. The final results were aggregated into regional summaries for national planning.

Solutions

Climate Resilience Solutions

Proactively assessing, planning for and adapting to major weather events and rising temperatures is essential for long-term sustainability. Stanley Consultants is leveraging Resilient Analytics to deliver data-driven solutions that prioritize human safety, safeguard communities and protect capital investments.

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