A Civil Engineering and Climate Change Protocol was adopted on June 2, 2009, at Coastal Engineering: Future Challenges, Future Risks, the triennial conference of ASCE, the Institute of Civil Engineers, and the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, held in St. Johns, New Foundland, Canada.
ASCE President D. Wayne Klotz, P.E., D.WRE, F.ASCE said in a press release which accompanied the protocol that climate change is creating risks for the infrastructure that supports our economy.
“As civil engineers, it is our duty to assure the performance of those critical systems, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and complying with the principles of sustainable development must play a major role in our efforts to mitigate the risks we face,” he said.
Klotz notes that ASCE has recently updated its policies to reflect the need for civil engineers to lead the efforts at adapting our infrastructure to rising sea levels, changes in rainfall patterns, and other predicted impacts of the changing climate. He said no national consensus has been reached on the best way to prepare for this long-term phenomenon. Meanwhile, the Dutch and British are already working under national guidance and changing their design codes to accommodate expected increases in sea level with its multiple impacts. The Canadians are working to develop specific guidelines for use in guarding the longest coastline of any nation in the world.
“As civil engineers, we do not claim to be climate scientists,” Klotz writes. “We do claim to be the stewards of the nation’s infrastructure. My conversations with our counterparts in these three countries make me pause. Are the civil engineers in the U.S. taking strong leadership in developing a strategy to deal with the impacts of climate change? Has ASCE done enough to raise the awareness of its members and to provide appropriate guidance for civil engineers to participate in local conversations about adapting our infrastructure design criteria?”
Klotz notes that our climate is changing and that civil engineers will have to change with it.
“All of us need to pick up the pace,” he said.
The joint climate change protocol calls for civil engineers to develop new technologies and materials to reduce emissions over project life cycles, focus on cost effective use of current technologies, continue research into new technologies, and initiate mitigation strategies with incentives for short-term development. It also suggests that civil engineers make use of high-efficiency, low greenhouse gas emitting technologies and cost-effective carbon capture and storage.
Under the protocol, ASCE will help governments develop a low-carbon infrastructure road map with key steps up to 2050. The plan will include: upscaling of renewable and low carbon energy generation; encouraging the use of new public transportation systems; and lower embedded energy in construction and infrastructure systems. The protocol commits ASCE to developing guidance documents on vulnerability assessments of civil infrastructure and best engineering practices for adaptation to those vulnerabilities.
Additionally, the protocol signals the societies’ support of an international agreement on global emissions which would: establish reasonable timelines for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; stimulate private investment in greenhouse gas reduction techniques; and encourage actions by other countries to reduce such emissions. Through the agreement, the Societies hope that investors will make a commitment to new and upgraded infrastructure.
Prior to signing the agreement, conference attendees had the chance to attend a number of sessions on climate change and sea-level rise. Jeff Williams, a coastal marine geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, spoke about the effects of storms and sea-level rise under global climate change. His talk focused on the need for coastal management and engineering to adapt to predicted regional variability in sea-level rise.
Key points in Williams’ presentation included that:
According to Williams, coastal scientists have well-established conceptual and qualitative frameworks based on field studies and modeling regarding the primary factors and processes that drive coastal change. Current techniques used to predict coastal change such as inundation modeling, historical shoreline-change analysis, and equilibrium-profile modeling, however, can’t yet provide reliable long-term predictions at spatial and temporal scales needed for detailed coastal planning.
“With substantial acceleration of SLR, ‘traditional’ coastal management and engineering practices (i.e., protecting and maintaining shoreline position with hard structures, beach nourishment) will become more difficult for society and may not be economically or environmentally sustainable for many coastal regions,” Williams says. “Sea-level rise projections need to be fully considered in coastal management plans and engineering design. Options such as relocation of infrastructures to higher elevation and conversion of low-lying areas to open space may be more appropriate in managing for and adapting to coastal change.”
For a copy of the protocol or to view the ASCE press release, please go to www.asce.org.
