SPR-696: Preliminary Study of Climate Adaptation for the Statewide ...

key climate-related impacts are projected to affect the Southwest region, including heat waves,early snowmelt, drought, urban heat island effects, degraded air quality, wildfires, and effects onecosystems and wildlife habitats.Arizona has an extensive and expansive transportation infrastructure system, including more than6,000 miles of roads and highways, nearly a dozen commercial airports, and several majorpassenger and freight rail lines.Climate variability and extreme events, such as storms and precipitation of increased intensity,will require changing operational responses from transportation providers. While U.S.transportation providers already address the impacts of weather on transportation systemoperations in a diverse range of climatic conditions, existing planning does not take into accountlong term changes in climate. Operational changes may include adjusting maintenance (both inthe timing and type of maintenance), improved monitoring of conditions (both climatic andinfrastructure conditions), incorporating climate scenario modeling into infrastructure planning,modifying procedures for emergency management, and altering construction schedules. Ingeneral, operational changes will apply to procedural planning at varying degrees of adjustment.For example, greater use of technology, such as climate scenario modeling, can enableinfrastructure providers to monitor climate changes and receive advance warning of potentialfailures due to changing conditions (such as water levels and currents, wave action, winds, andtemperatures) exceeding what the infrastructure was designed to withstand.While transportation planning efforts do take weather conditions into account in the design ofinfrastructure, there is less examination of whether current design standards are sufficient toaccommodate climate change. For example, the increased summer temperatures and theincreased number of very hot days may result in additional highway asphalt rutting. Arizonaalready uses heat-resistant paving materials, although effects of climate change may magnify oraccelerate the need for maintenance. If climate projections indicate that the current number ofdays exceeding a certain temperature will occur more frequently, the design standards forpavement would need to be updated to consider these changing conditions. Examples of designstrategies include development and application of new, heat-resistant paving materials; greateruse of heat-tolerant street and highway landscaping; proper design/construction of milling outruts; and overlay with more rut-resistant asphalt.STUDY FINDINGSMajor summary findings from the online survey are summarized below: Climate change is affecting ADOT operations. The majority of people (56 percent ofrespondents) believe that climate change is affecting ADOT operations, and 50 percent ofrespondents believe that ADOT should have a role in planning for climate change. ADOT employees address a variety of time horizons in their jobs. When asked howfar into the future respondents look to make their decisions, 36 percent of responses were“short term” (less than one year), 35 percent were “mid term” (one to five years),23 percent were long term (more than five years), and 6 percent were “Other”. Most of the identified climate impacts are seen as relevant to employees’ jobfunctions. Respondents could choose from a list of potential climate change impacts,2