Cities Should Plan Now for Effects of Global Warming on Infrastructure

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- A first of its kind study by the University of Maryland, Tufts and Boston Universities demonstrates that in coming decades sea level rise, changes in rainfall and other effects of climate change will have major, costly impacts on infrastructure systems of cities around the world.

"Local, state and federal leaders don't need to resolve debates over the cause of global warming to recognize that it is occurring and that the only wise move is to start planning now," said Matthias Ruth, Roy F. Weston Chair and director of the Environmental Policy Program in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. "The central lesson of this study is that the sooner officials begin to recognize and respond to the coming infrastructure impacts of climate change the lower the costs of those impacts will be."

According to Ruth, the implications of these findings apply to cities worldwide even though the research was focused on the Boston region.

"The current study provides a great recipe for analyzing the impacts of climate change on a region's infrastructure that can be readily applied to other areas," Ruth says. He notes that other projects based on methods of the current study are already underway in Australia and New Zealand, and that officials in China and Mexico have also expressed interest in conducting such studies. A study that Ruth conducted on the impacts of climate change on the energy sector in the Maryland-Washington, D.C. region is currently nearing completion.

Boston Faces Rising Tide of Costs

Smaller, but closer in time, according to Ruth, are impacts such as increased public health costs from an increase in the number of heat waves in the city. Such "extreme heat events" could easily triple within this century, in a region where people and infrastructure are adapted to mild summers.

Overall, the study concluded that the most costly approach for Boston and other cities to use is what the researchers call the "ride it out" approach. Current infrastructure planning ignores climate change impacts, and under a ride it out strategy, no proactive steps would be taken. Money would be spent to fix things "only after they were broken."

The best approach according to the researchers is a "green" one that takes full account of projected climate change impacts. Under a green strategy, officials would immediately begin to revise standards, plans and projections, and, as infrastructure wears out, make upgrades based on these revisions.

For example, the Boston study shows that by the year 2100 so-called 100-year floods will occur every 5-10 years. City officials routinely base flood plain requirements, storm water systems, building codes and many other aspects of city planning on estimates of the worst flood over the next 100 years. Flood levels currently seen as occurring only once every 500 years would become the upgraded 100-year standard under a green strategy for Boston.

"In the long run, a green approach will be some three times cheaper than a ride it out approach," Ruth said.

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