Using systems thinking for better collaboration toward climate resilience
Jonny Krzyzosiak & Justin Brassett, Mott MacDonald
When infrastructure assets are affected by the adverse impacts of climate change and severe weather, these impacts can cascade from one sector to another. A storm can cause a power outage, which results in traffic lights failing and traffic grinding to a halt. The resulting unavailability of people and goods then has further impacts. The interdependencies between infrastructure assets significantly influences their collective resilience.
As part of the 2008 UK Climate Change Act, the UK Government’s Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary can require organisations to report on their climate risks and adaptation actions, which happens through rounds of the Adaptation Reporting Power (ARP). The Climate Change Committee’s evaluation of ARP Round 3 identified the need to improve and incorporate analysis of interdependencies at Round 4. Mott MacDonald recently supported Transport for London (TfL) and the wider London land-based transport sector in the development of a new approach for understanding interdependency risks as part of their ARP4 submissions.
The method combined a systems mapping approach with a climate change risk assessment and while the work focused on London, the learnings from the process could benefit other regions too.
The work allowed TfL to undertake a structured stakeholder engagement process with other asset owners to jointly develop a comprehensive understanding of its interdependencies and climate risks. As a result, this provided a platform to collaboratively identify and prioritise potential measures to take action and mitigate those risks.
Many Scottish infrastructure organisations will be looking to report on climate adaptation, either as part of ARP4 or beyond. Based in Glasgow, Mott MacDonald’s Alan Hendry would be happy to discuss the project and understand your interdependencies: Alan.Hendry@MottMac.com