| Peter Owen, Director, Portcare International Ltd “Climate change adaptation should be thought of as a continuous cycle of review and planning on a journey to an increased resilience to the impacts of climate change” The predicted impacts on global trade, and ports in particular of climate change present real risk. In considering incident data relating to extreme weather, international freight transport insurer TT Club emphasises that there is a concerning picture of significant disruption to the global supply chain industry. Disruption is increasingly being seen from extreme weather events, causing damage to infrastructure or equipment, injuries and fatalities. However, account needs to be taken of incremental changes, such as increases in air and water temperatures, rising sea levels and seasonal rainfall intensities. The widely recognised changing global weather patterns now demands serious attention to the potential impacts of changing weather patterns on all logistics operations, most particularly at the ship/port interface. The climate model predictions generally evidence an overall warming of the planet, which in turn will drive changes in weather patterns and increases in average sea levels. Such models necessarily reflect complex physical properties of the earth’s climate and draw on scientific principles, and therefore build in levels of uncertainty. By engaging with these models operators can obtain a more accurate forecast for the immediate, medium and long term future in order to plan and adapt infrastructure and operations to accommodate any predicted changes. The impacts of these modelled climate changes vary depending upon your geographical location. Nevertheless, as a generality for port and terminal infrastructure, there is likely increasing vulnerabilities to: Flooding from rising sea-level and increased intensity of storm surges or heavy rainfall that may exceed the design height of waterside assets or capacity of the storm water drainage system High winds resulting in damage to infrastructure and assets, not to mention operational disruption due to limitations on the operational windspeed of port or terminal assets High temperatures that exceed original design temperature ranges of the asset that may result in asset failure or increased fire risk, together with welfare considerations for workforce in high temperatures. These impacts are being felt now around the globe and the climate model predictions indicate that they are likely to grow in significance, even with the global drive to lower GHG emissions. Inherently, climate and related parameters play a significant part in the design of port and terminal infrastructure. Therefore, in order to develop and maintain facilities for the future it is necessary to be clear on the climate parameters that are being or have been considered. This variation evident in the models presents challenge, since development and climate change adaptation plans must have a degree of flexibility built in to accommodate this uncertainty, providing the ability to adapt infrastructure and assets as the climate changes and climate models advance. Often when initiating a large-scale project, especially with the complexity of potential climate change adaptation, simply getting started is daunting. Reliance necessarily has to be placed on one of a growing number of specialist consultancies with the experience in this industry, able to assist in making sense of the climate models and the potential impacts. However, there are some basic steps that can be done to help you on this journey, including: Making sense of the data – ports and terminals typically gather vast amounts of data during their normal operation, which can provide valuable insight to the current climate impacts that your facility is experiencing. Simply recording and monitoring the number and duration of things, such as down time caused by high winds or storms, will provide some insight overtime on climate impacts. Long-term effects – understanding the criticality of your assets / infrastructure, considering the impact on the operation of an outage and the susceptibility of individual assets to climate change provides valuable insight. This systematic review of the facility could provide the insight needed to prioritise adaptation measure. Climate change adaptation should be thought of as a continuous cycle of review and planning on a journey to an increased resilience to the impacts of climate change. Such adaptive management can be depicted as in this diagram: The essential steps are therefore: understanding specific local impacts from global and regional analyses; developing and logging hazards and risks in your geographical location; planning for climate adaptation to address the new hazards; cyclical implementation of such plans and continuous review of effectiveness of the planned and implemented measures. In conclusion, climate change adaptation is inevitably a journey and each organisation and geographical location is likely to face challenges bespoke to their facilities and operations. Resilience to a changing climate requires a focused approach that considers the impacts of climate change at a whole business risk level. The data, possible impacts and adaptation options can be complex. However, there are specialist consultancies with expertise to assist wherever you are on this climate adaption journey. The age and long life expectancy of port and transport infrastructure and assets require diligent engagement with climate change impacts to ensure that appropriate strategies and plans are formulated and adopted. |
