Abstract
The present work introduces a case study on the climate resilience of interconnected critical infrastructures to forest fires, that was performed within the framework on H2020 EU-CIRCLE project (GA 653824). It was conducted in South France, one of the most touristic European regions, and also one of the regions at the highest forest fire risk that is projected to be amplified under future climate conditions. The case study has been implemented through a co-creation framework with local stakeholders, which is critical in moving beyond physical damages to the infrastructures, introducing the elements of infrastructure business continuity and societal resilience. Future forest fires extremes are anticipated to impact the interconnections of electricity and transportation networks that could further cascade to communities throughout South France. The work highlighted the benefits of enhancing co-operation between academia, emergency responders, and infrastructure operators as a critical element in enhancing resilience through increased awareness of climate impacts, new generated knowledge on fire extremes and better cooperation between involved agencies.
Highlights
It is presently understood that climate related hazards have the potential to substantially affect the lifespan, serviceability, or even devastate critical infrastructures (CI), such as the energy, transportation, telecommunications, buildings, health, and water management facilities [1,2]
The generation of electricity in Provence Alpes Cote d’Azur (PACA) is mainly located in the mountainous hinterland, and the importation comes from the Rhône Valley, while the consumption occurs on the seashore (RTE personal communication)
Concerning the establishment of climate change risk assessment methodology, there is considerable difficulty to work with analytical damage functions, as CI operators are is considerable difficulty to work with analytical damage functions, as CI operators are not accustomed to such approach
Summary
It is presently understood that climate related hazards have the potential to substantially affect the lifespan, serviceability, or even devastate critical infrastructures (CI), such as the energy, transportation, telecommunications, buildings, health, and water management facilities [1,2]. The present work demonstrates a case study of the EU-CIRCLE H2020 project (GA 653824) that identified how anticipated changes in the future climate and an increased probability of occurrence of disastrous events may impact the operation of key assets and essential services that interconnected CI deliver. At the center of the EU-CIRCLE approach is the concept of “service flow continuum”, where the resilience of CI is linked to how they can better understand the evolving nature of hazards due to climate change and implement early warning systems (anticipatory capacity), be exposed to lower levels of risk or reduce their climate vulnerabilities (absorbing capacity), be able to respond faster and collaborate more efficiently with other CI and emergency responders (coping capacity), and return to normality and full operational levels (restoration capacity).
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