Scottish infrastructure study to trace climate risks across essential networks

Summary

• Infrastructure operators and public bodies are commissioning a cross-sector climate-risk study.
• The research will examine how disruption spreads between transport, energy, water and communications networks.
• Scottish case studies will assess potential effects on businesses, communities and essential services.
• The project will go out to tender, with the selected supplier delivering the work over 12 months.

Scotland’s infrastructure operators and public bodies are commissioning research into how climate-related failures in one network could disrupt services in others. The study will examine connections between transport, energy, water supply and communications, identifying vulnerabilities that may be missed when sectors assess their risks separately.

The Climate Ready Infrastructure Scotland Forum, known as CRIS, is commissioning the work. Its partners include infrastructure operators, government bodies and academic institutions working on Scotland’s resilience to climate change.

The project will go out to tender through Public Contracts Scotland, with the successful supplier appointed to deliver the research over 12 months. The National Centre for Resilience, hosted by the University of Glasgow, will manage the process and coordinate delivery for the funding partners.

The study will create a shared register of how Scotland’s infrastructure systems depend on one another. It will identify points where climate-related failures could have the greatest consequences and analyse how disruption could spread across connected networks.

David Harkin, Network Rail Scotland’s weather resilience and climate change adaptation strategy manager and co-chair of CRIS, said: “We have a growing understanding of the climate risks facing individual sectors, including within the railway. What’s much less clear is how disruption can spread between them. A power outage can affect communications, transport disruption can delay recovery efforts, and the impacts can quickly reach far beyond the point where the original damage occurred.”

Place-based case studies across Scotland will simulate what the identified risks could mean for businesses, communities and essential services. The work is funded by a coalition of infrastructure owners, operators and public bodies, with Scottish Government support.

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Partners include Network Rail, Scottish Water, ScotRail, Openreach, SSEN Distribution and Transmission, Transport Scotland and the Met Office. The research will look at risks across sectors rather than focusing on a single operator’s assets.

Fabrice Renaud, professor of environmental risk and community resilience and director of the National Centre for Resilience at the University of Glasgow, said: “The Climate Risk Interdependencies Commission will look across sectors to identify where these interconnected vulnerabilities and risks lie, and what this could mean for our communities and the provision of essential services we all rely on. This work will help inform how we can strengthen Scotland’s resilience to natural hazards and better prepare for the challenges we face.”