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Climate change is beginning to be measurable and, no matter what we do to mitigate it, a rise of global temperatures by 2°C to 4°C within this century is no longer avoidable. The consequences will be more extreme events such as hot and dry summers, heavy winter storms, storm surges, floods and landslides. The need for adaptation is recognised, but the magnitudes and consequences of these changes in the weather system are not yet well understood. Therefore, the WEATHER project aims at analysing the economic costs of climate change on transport systems in Europe and explores ways for reducing them in the context of sustainable policy design. More information on the research streams and the project consortium are given on the following pages.

Latest development and upcoming activities in the WEATHER project:

Final WEATHER Conference 23.4.2012 in Athens - Presentations available

The closing event of the WEATHER project took place  as a one day conference on Monday, April 23rd 2012 in Athens. It was hosted in the Athens Concert Hall together with the 2012 Transport Research Arena (TRA). Invited were researchers, policy-makers and transport professionals to participate in the conference and by that to support the development of a roadmap how to deal with weather extremes and transportation systems on various levels. The final conference programme and all presentations are available here.
 
Deliverable 5: The role of Actors, Governance and Innovation

We have now finalised Deliverable 5: "The role of governance, incentives and innovation", exploring how different policy settings foster climate change adaptation in the transport sector. The analysis has been focussed on actor analysis, policy instruments and innovation management. We found that public transport operators and infrastructure managers are forerunners in adapting transport service operations. The draft report is now available for download on the WEATHER website.

WEATHER publications download section

Newsletter #2 issued
 
We have now issued our second Newsletter on the final conference and the lately published draft versions of Deliverable 1 (Climate Trends and Wider Economic Impacts) and D4 (Adaptation Strategies in the Transport Sector). Please see Publications/Newsletter for the PDF versions of this and all back issues and on options for adding and removing your email address to our dissemination list.
 
Publications / Newsletters

Joined Seminar in Washington DC

The projects WEATHER, EWENT and ECCONET have organised a special workshop at Transportation Research Board's Annual Meeting in Washington, on January 22nd 2012. The workshop got together several dozens of attendees of the Annual Meeting and was mentioned in several occasions as a good example of EU-US co-operation in the arena of transportation research. The presentations are available via the websites of the WEATHER and EWENT projects.


Meteorological Trends and Wider Economic Impacts

Deliverable 1: "Weather Trends and Economy-Wide Impacts" has been submitted to the EC on October 2011. A preliminary version is now available on the WEATHER website. Statistical downscaling for northern Italy reveals, that on the local level the increase of summer heat periods and the change of precipitation patterns can be more extreme than on the European scale. The ARIO-T input-output model shows, that for the wider transport sector extremes cause costs of several 100 million Euros annually, which contrasts previous project findings of €2.5 billion in the transport sector alone.

WEATHER publications download section

Long-Term Adaptation Strategies

Deliverable 4 on Adaptation Strategies has been formally submitted to the EC in December 2011 and is now available in a preliminary version on the WEATHER website. In the course of the work we have assessed over 300 technical and organisational adaptation measures across all modes in the areas transport planning, infrastructures, vehicles and operations.  Results strongly indicate that priority should be given to company-internal preparation, staff training and co-operations.

WEATHER publications download section

Newsletter #1 issued
 
Within the course of the WEATHER project a couple of newsletters are foreseen to disseminate our results and upcoming project events. All issues will be provided on the project website and will be curculated via our email distribution list. Please see Publications/Newsletter for the PDF document and options for adding and removing your email address to our dissemination list. 
 
Publications / Newsletters

Workshop 3: Adapting Transport to Weather Extremes, Rotterdam, 20.5.2011

The project team has organised the third and last targeted workshop on options to increase the resilience of transport systems to weather extremes on May 20th 2011 in Rotterdam. Considered were strategies in the fields of infrastructure and vehicle technology, system operations and planning procedures across all modes and European climate regions. With a mix of presentations from transport industry and academia the workshop has covered a wide range of questions and possible solutions. The workshop summary report is now available for download here:

Workshop 3: Adaption

Deliverable 3: Innovative emergency management strategies - NOW AVAILABLE

Deliverable 3 is now available online. The document gives an overview of technical and organisational issues of crises and emergency management structures and of weather information systems across Europe and develops respective policy guidelines. Main issues are clear command, control and coordination structures and the regularly updated response plans.  The full report can be downloaded here:

WEATHER publications download section

Deliverable 2: Vulnerability of Transport systems - NOW AVAILABLE

With numerous annexes on climate trends, modelling issues and modal analyses, the first public report of the WEATHER project is now available. Deliverable 2 is providing a first estimate of economic losses through the past decade. Although we find that the overall annual costs of 2.5 billion Euros across Europe are manageable, there are several particularly vulnerable regions and modes, which deserve special attention. The full report can be downloaded here:

WEATHER publications download section

Workshop 2: Organizing Emergency Management strategies for the transport sector with the use of innovative IT systems, Brussels, 28.2.2011

Our second workshop dealing with Emergency Management issues for improving data provision (information flow) and organizational structures between the involved stakeholders as well as with procedures and strategies for coping with weather-related emergency cases in the transport sector was held at February 28th 2011 in Brussels. The presentations and a short summary report are available here:
 
Workshop 2: Emergency Management