Transportation Research Board Stands Up New Committee on Climate Change and Extreme Weather Adaptation
Within the past year, the Transportation Research Board (TRB), part of the National Academy of Sciences, has formed the Committee on Climate Change and Extreme Weather Adaptation. TRB’s decision to form this committee recognizes the growing importance of community and infrastructure resilience, and the risks posed by a trend of increasing frequency and severity of natural hazard events.
The Committee mission is to address both episodic (storms, wildfires, heat waves, etc.) and slow onset (sea level rise, global warming, etc.) events that will require planning/policy changes to the transportation system and other critical infrastructure systems (housing, energy, etc.). It is focused on promoting collaboration, disseminating information, identifying priority research needs, and obtaining funding to satisfy these needs.
The Committee is unique in that it will be comprised of multi-stakeholder membership representation, including participation from carriers, shippers, insurers, academicians, government officials (local, state, federal), attorneys, foundations, non-profit organizations, and international agencies. Such involvement and collaboration among these stakeholders are considered essential to promoting innovative research and practice that is critically needed at this time and will remain so for decades to come.
VCCI’s Mark Abkowitz serves as Committee Chair and Leah Dundon is a formal member of this group. Anyone interested in keeping abreast of committee activities can register as a Friend of the Committee. This can be done by accessing the following link:
Committee on Climate Change and Extreme Weather Adaptation