R&D highlights edition 2019

PROJECTS Delta infrastructure 48 E uropean National Road Authorities (NRAs) have acknowledged for a long time that climate change will have a significant impact on their assets and operations. The damage caused by floods and rain to infrastructure assets amounts to €600 million annually, making it the most dominant weather impact by far in relation to climate change. There are many challenges associated with addressing intense rainfall events through the proper design and maintenance of water management systems. These challenges can be found both in the field of climate science itself and in the use of climate predictions in proper design and maintenance. The CEDR 2015 call - Climate Change: From Desk to Road – addressed this topic. Under this CEDR call, the WATCH project elaborated the topic of water management for road authorities in the face of climate change. Deltares coordinated the project, in which Egis, ROD-IS, KNMI and the Danish Road Directorate were partners. In summary, the WATCH project produced a number of immediate benefits for NRAs that can be implemented directly: • A comprehensive manual for determining the resilience of drainage systems and the consequences for inspection and maintenance, as well as for the design and assessment of alternatives. This manual covers all the other outputs described below. • A country comparison report describing the current approaches to water management and drainage by different NRAs. • Guidelines for the correct interpretation and application of relevant information from climate projections and scenarios for use in road drainage and maintenance design. • A simple tool that shows climate analogues for rainfall extremes in Europe. • A protocol for adapting SUDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) to climate change, with applications for roads across Europe. • Guidelines for a cost-benefit assessment of adaptation and maintenance approaches to water management in order to optimise decision-making capacity at NRAs. Cost-benefit assessments are seen as an essential, but often lacking, tool for the implementation of measures for climate change adaptation. Contact: Thomas Bles, Thomas.Bles@deltares.nl , t +31 (0)6 1173 4843 Further reading : https://www.cedr.eu/strategic-plan-tasks/research/cedr-call-2015/call- 2015-climate-change-desk-road/ WATCH – WATER MANAGEMENT FOR ROAD AUTHORITIES IN THE FACE OF CLIMATE CHANGE