Climate change impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016

Climate change impacts on society
5.5 Transport
Key messages
• Past and present weather-related impacts on transport are mostly related to individual extreme events. The main climatic
stressors for transport are heat waves in southern and eastern Europe, cold spells and snow in northern Europe, and
heavy precipitation and floods in most of Europe.
• The impacts projected by 2050 are expected to be limited and manageable if proper adaptation measures are taken.
However, available assessments of climate change impacts on transport, including the costs from extremes, do not
give a comprehensive overview of climate-related risks for transport across Europe owing to their widely different
methodological approaches.
• The impacts of climate change on transport vary depending on the region and the transport modes considered. Transport
systems in mountainous regions, coastal areas and regions prone to more intense rain and snow are generally expected
to be most vulnerable to future climate change. Available projections suggest that rail transport will face particularly high
risks from extreme weather events, mostly as a result of the projected increase in heavy rain events and limited route
alternatives.
5.5.1 Overview
The European society and its economy remain highly
dependent on the availability of reliable and efficient
transport systems. Transport infrastructure and
operations are sensitive to the impacts of climate
change, and the effects of those impacts fall well
beyond the transport sector, causing enormous
disruption in human activities and considerable indirect
economic damage, particularly if they affect critical
links such as the few transnational connections serving
international traffic in Europe and beyond. The long
life span of many transport components, including not
only infrastructure but also some vehicles, reaches well
beyond 2050 and in some cases even beyond 2100, and
wherever possible, their design characteristics should
take into consideration the expected climate conditions
in those years.
Of the 33 EEA member countries, 17 have developed
some kind of climate-related vulnerability assessment
of their transport systems, and 10 of them have
conducted detailed studies for at least some transport
modes (Map 5.19). It is worth noting that transport
is not considered a priority sector for vulnerability
assessment in the majority of these countries. There
is a wide variety in the approaches followed by the
countries that have developed detailed vulnerability
studies. In some cases, such as Greece (Giannopoulos
et al., 2011) and Spain (CEDEX, 2013), a common
approach has been followed to analyse all transport
modes; in other cases, such as France (République
Française, 2011) and the United Kingdom (DEFRA,
2012; Thornes et al., 2012), the key stakeholders
for each transport mode (generally infrastructure
managers) have received a mandate to conduct their
own vulnerability studies. Depending on each country's
priorities, some transport modes have been particularly
active compared with others: this is the case, for
example, for rail and road transport in mountainous
areas such as in Austria (Steininger et al., 2015) and
Switzerland (FOEN, 2012).
254 Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016 | An indicator-based report