The railway transportation system of the Alpine country Austria plays an important role in the European transit of passengers and freights. Moreover, the Austrian railway network is essential for the accessibility of lateral alpine valleys and is thus of crucial importance for their economic and societal welfare. If traffic networks are (temporarily) disrupted, alternative options for transportation are rarely available.
Settlements, infrastructure, land use and road connections in the Grimsel area in southern Switzerland are heavily exposed to risks from hydrological and gravitational natural hazard processes, such as rock fall, mudflows, landslides, avalanches, and floods favoured by sedimentation of debris. Permafrost thawing, glacier retreat, and more frequent heavy rainfall events due to climate change are expected to further decrease slope stability and increase likelihood of mass movements.
In 2011, as all other large infrastructure providers in UK, Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL) was asked by the UK government to submit a climate change adaptation report (also called adaptation strategy). The report included a climate adaptation risk analysis matrix, which has been regularly monitored since then. Besides rain (and consequent flooding) and temperature, fog and changing wind directions were identified as the weather conditions deserving more attention today and also in the future.
Šibenik-Knin County in Croatia has 960 km of coast and 285 islands and rocks. Its coastal zone consists of seven municipalities and three cities including Šibenik, the administrative centre. The Coastal Plan for the Šibenik-Knin County focuses on the impacts of climate change in the coastal zone and adaptation to projected changes. The Coastal Plan (at December 2014) is being prepared by the PAP/RAC (Priority Actions Programme/ Regional Activity Centre) in Split and the Plan Bleu: both are components of the UNEP Mediterranean Action Programme.
The Albert canal in the eastern part of Flanders connects the industrial zones around Liege with the harbour of Antwerp. Ships can continue their way at both ends of the canal: via the river Scheldt to the Netherlands and via the river Meuse to France. In the future the Meuse basin, from which the Albert canal receives its water, is projected to experience more and longer periods of low river discharge, as a consequence of climate change, and so less water is expected to be available for sluicing ships. This would limit inland navigation.
Climate change impact assessment has been an integrated part of the design and planning of the Copenhagen metro since the first metro line was designed in the mid-1990s. For this scope, Metroselskabet, the Copenhagen metro company, developed a climate change adaptation strategy, which supports the integration of adaptation aspects since the planning and dimensioning phase of the metro system. Apart from the first metro line, opened in 2002, and related extensions in following years, in 2019 Metroselskabet put into operation a new city circle line (Cityringen line M3/M4).
At the request of the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy (DGITM), Cerema (Centre d’Études et d’Expertise sur les Risques, l’Environnement, la Mobilité et l’Aménagement) under supervision of the French Administration, completed in 2015 a systematic review of standards and guidelines on the design, maintenance and operation of transport infrastructures. The aim of this review was to adapt transport infrastructures and systems to future climate conditions and foster greater resilience to the effects of extreme weather events.
The UK is generally projected to experience increases in extremes of the precipitation regime as a result of climate change, especially in terms of higher occurrence and intensity of heavy summer rainfall events. An important resilience action to mitigate the impacts from such increases is the improvement of drainage management. Climate change resilience within Network Rail, the national railway infrastructure managing authority in Great Britain, is driven by corporate strategic objectives defined by the Weather Resilience and Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (WRCCA), finalized in 2017.
The Alfacada and Tancada coastal lagoons are located in the Delta del Ebro Natural Park. The lagoons are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, particularly sea level rise, in combination with sediment deficit due to river regulation, leading to exacerbated coastal erosion and subsidence. Local management practices (e.g. intensive rice farming) have also affected the natural habitats and species, causing wetland loss and changes in salinity and water quality.