Highways Agency - Safe roads, Reliable journeys, Informed travellers

Related pages

• Sustainable Development
• Climate Change
• Climate Change Adaptation
• Climate Change Mitigation
• Facts, Figures and Resources

Climate Change Adaptation

Adaptation - how we need to adapt to operate within a changing climate and deal with the impacts of such change.  Climate change is a risk issue, we need to understand the risks to our operations from a changing climate and take appropriate, measured and timely action to manage these risks.

We have developed a climate change risk assessment methodology as part of our adaptation strategy.  This will enable us to incorporate climate change considerations into our design standards and specifications, routine maintenance, operating procedures, and the development of contingency plans.  This will ensure the Highways Agency continues to operate a robust network.

Many of the Highways Agency's activities are either directly affected or influenced by the weather and climate.  We need to ensure we can continue to provide an effective strategic road network in the context of a changing climate.

This need was recognised in our first sustainable development action plan (2007) and led to the development of the Highways Agency Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (PDF 2MB).  The strategy provides a systematic process to indentify activities that may be affected by a changing climate, determine the associated risks, and indentify preferred options to address and manage them.

In support of the adaptation strategy, the Highways Agency Adaptation Framework has been developed.  It has been designed specifically to meet our needs and to address key aims of the adaptation provisions of the Climate Change Act.

The purpose of the adaptation framework is to enable the Highways Agency to systematically develop and implement our responses to the challenges of climate change in support of the delivery of corporate objectives. The framework provides a platform for decision makers to examine their individual business areas, determine associated risks (and opportunities) and identify preferred options to address and manage them. 

We will use the latest scenarios from the UK Climate Projections to further inform our work on adaptation, as well as contribute to internal guidance to ensure that the changing climate is factored into our new advice, technical standards and specifications.

We are seeking to consolidate our previous work on climate change adaptation and mitigation.  We have applied our climate change adaptation framework to the high priority areas of our business and assigned management actions to those key climate related risks.  The next step is ensuring all areas of our business have considered the possible risks of a changing climate.