Implications for Future Risk Management Strategies - Climate Change and Infrastructure, Urban Systems, and Vulnerabilities - page 63

A critical component of the NPCC's work was to define Climate Protection Levels to
address the issue of climate change impacts on the effectiveness of current regulations
and design standards related to sea level rise and storm surge, heat waves, and inland
flooding. Most important for the City is that in order to maintain a similar level of cur-
rent risk it will be necessary to adjust the current building codes. This is another way in
which climate change becomes integrated into the urbanization process by influencing
a set of climate risk-related construction guidelines - e.g. how to build for increased
frequency and intensity of precipitation and flooding events, heat waves, and extreme
wind events.
The Adaptation Assessment Guidebook (AAG), another product of the NPCC de-
scribes a detailed process designed to help stakeholders create an inventory of their
at-risk infrastructure and to develop adaptation strategies to address those risks. The
Adaptation Assessment Guidebook (AAG) includes three tools developed to aid the
stakeholders in their adaptation planning process including an infrastructure question-
naires, risk matrix, and prioritization Framework. The adaptation process was defined
as a dynamic cycle of analysis and action followed by evaluation, further analysis, and
refinement (i.e., learn, then act, then learn some more). The steps outlined in the AAG
are intended to become integral parts of ongoing risk management, maintenance and
operation, and capital planning processes of the agencies and organizations that manage
and operate critical infrastructure.
The adaptation approach developed by the NPCC fosters a Flexible Adaptation Path-
ways approach - originally developed by the London TE2100 - that can evolve over time
as understanding of climate change improves and that concurrently reflect local, nation-
al, and global economic and social conditions. Flexible Adaptation Pathways is a con-
cept that encourages building climate change adaptation strategies that can be adjusted
and modified over time to reflect the dynamic and ongoing climate change understand-
ing (see Figure 14 and 15 and Tables 8 and 9 ) .
The NPCC consists of climate change and impacts scientists, and legal, insurance, and
risk management experts and serves as the technical advisory body and was designed
to function in an objective manner similar to the role that the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) plays on an international stage for nation-states. The work of
the NPCC is to ensure that the city's adaptation efforts are based on sound science and a
thorough understanding of climate change, its potential impacts, and adaptation, along
with interactions with climate change mitigation. To assist the City, the NPCC has ana-
lyzed climate change hazards, studied impacts on the critical infrastructure of New York
City, and developed a risk management framework for adaptation planning, which, in
turn, contributed to the development of the city's climate change adaptation planning
framework.
C. Adaptive Infrastructure in Other Countries
Many other countries, faced with climate change and other sustainable development
concerns similar to those of the US, are proceeding with adaptive strategies for infra-
structures and urban systems. Without suggesting that social contexts are unimportant,
some of their experiences will serve as sources of information for the US about options