Published yesterday (7 September) in partnership with the UK Infrastructure Operators Adaptation Forum, Preparing the UK for Compound Events says the nation is “preparing for yesterday’s weather while tomorrow’s climate has already arrived”.
Coming at the tail end of the UK’s hottest ever summer, in which record-breaking heatwave followed record-breaking heatwave, the report reveals that the biggest threat is no longer a single flood, heatwave or storm, but the potential cascading effects from one extreme event following another.
“The UK must rethink how it protects the essential services millions of people rely on as climate change brings more frequent, severe and unpredictable extreme weather,” an IMechE announcement said. At-risk infrastructure could include railway lines, power stations and hospitals.
“Heatwaves can hit infrastructure from both sides, reducing power capacity while sending demand for cooling soaring. A power failure can then knock out communications, digital services, food supply and even healthcare. Yet much of the UK’s infrastructure is still designed around individual hazards and yesterday’s weather, leaving it vulnerable to increasingly unpredictable extremes.”
There are five things the UK needs to do now, according to the announcement:
1. Stop designing for yesterday’s weather
Stress-test new and existing infrastructure against plausible future extremes, including combinations of heat, flooding, drought and storms.
2. Prepare for everything going wrong at once
Government and infrastructure operators should run regular cross-sector exercises to test how failures could cascade across energy, water, transport, food, healthcare and telecommunications.
3. Find Britain’s weak links
Map critical dependencies on power, water, digital systems, transport, suppliers and the workforce, and remove single points of failure wherever possible.
A case study in the report highlights efforts by the NHS, which has already used systems mapping to identify how climate risks could cascade through data centres, telecommunications, energy and healthcare, leading to practical measures such as backing up critical data across different locations.
4. Invest before disaster strikes
Funding and regulation should allow investment in resilience before extreme weather causes failure, rather than waiting for disasters to demonstrate the need.
A case study on Glasgow’s integrated water management plan “shows the benefits of taking a whole-system approach, with investment delivering flood protection, better water quality, urban improvements and greater climate resilience,” the report said.
5. Build infrastructure that can adapt
Design major infrastructure so it can be strengthened or modified as climate risks change, with clear triggers for action.
The Thames Estuary 2100 plan shows how this can work, according to the report. The plan uses monitoring and decision points to determine when further flood protection is needed, rather than committing to one solution decades in advance.
“A lot of the best practice that we’ve highlighted in the report through the case studies uses adaptation pathways,” Dr Laura Kent, government affairs and policy manager at IMechE and one of the report authors, told Professional Engineering.
“That allows infrastructure owners to make decisions incrementally as the risks evolve, rather than committing to a single solution from the outset – but you’re still making progress, you’re still adapting, it’s still moving things forward. It’s just building in decision points along the way; infrastructure owners can adapt differently or pursue alternative options when required.
“We could spend forever talking about what could happen, the uncertainty, whether it will or will not happen, what degree of warming will we get, how many hot days, how many wet days will we have? But at some point, we need to stop debating every possibility and start getting on with adaptation.”
Other case studies highlighted by the report include Denmark’s rail operator Banedanmark, which uses sensors, asset data and lessons from incidents and near-misses to understand when infrastructure performance is beginning to deteriorate, allowing investment decisions to respond as risks evolve.
“Sensors are being deployed at selected high-risk locations to collect data on water levels, ground conditions and asset performance. Combined with climate risk assessments and improved asset information, this enables a better understanding of how climate hazards affect the railway and where vulnerabilities are most significant,” the report says.
“The Banedanmark experience illustrates how high-quality asset data, continuous monitoring, operational learning and targeted investment can underpin adaptive infrastructure management. It demonstrates effective climate adaptation is not a one-off intervention but an ongoing asset management process in which monitoring, evidence and engineering judgement are continually integrated to strengthen long-term resilience, while balancing risk, cost and operational performance.”
The report shows that “the biggest risk we face may not be one extreme event, but several occurring in series and many things going wrong at once – particularly the failures that cascade from one system into another,” said Dr Tim Fox FIMechE, chair of IMechE’s Climate Change Adaptation Working Group.
“Our infrastructure is increasingly interconnected. If the power goes down, what happens to the water supply and refrigerated food? If transport is disrupted, can essential workers get to hospitals? If a data centre fails during extreme heat, can vital services across multiple sectors continue?”
He added: “These approaches demonstrate a new model of resilience. We cannot predict exactly what the climate will look like decades from now. But we can make sure our infrastructure is capable of responding when conditions change.
“The question is no longer simply: can this asset withstand a flood or a heatwave? It is: can the system continue to provide the service people depend on when several things go wrong at once?”
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.