Impacts of extreme weather events on infrastructure in Norway (InfraRisk)

Global warming will most likely change the frequency and/or intensity of Extreme Weather Events (EWEs) in most world regions. Climate change and the resulting expected increase in major weather-related natural catastrophes are essential drivers of an expe cted trend of rising losses in the future. So far, we have only limited knowledge about past and future changes in EWEs impacting infrastructure in Norway. We know that EWEs cause a threat to infrastructure today, but there is still a great need to quanti fy this threat. We need to know more about what type of consequences to expect from the different types of events and also we need to identify the stakeholders that will sustain loss in the case of an event. In this study we aim, therefore, at developing methods to assess the total risk caused by EWEs to various infrastructure objects (transport and building sector) that can be used to evaluate which mitigation measures can be taken in order to effectively adapt to EWEs. We will focus on the analysis of the exposure and vulnerability of infrastructure and the assessment of available mitigation measures. A further focus will be how measures and methods must be designed in order to best facilitate the decision making process in the management of this type of risks. We will build upon existing results from, e.g., the RCN-funded 'GeoExtreme' project (2003-2008), that imply changes in the frequency of EWEs in the future. In this project we aim at gaining a more solidified understanding of presumable changes n ot only in the frequency domain but also in the intensity and the spatial distribution of EWEs. The present project aims at integrating natural and social sciences with a group of selected stakeholders. One very important role of their involvement will b e to identify what type of information they need in order to better adapt to EWEs.