ERA-NET ROAD initiated a cross-border funded Joint Research Programme! -

Call for Proposals

“Road Owners Getting to Grips with Climate Change” is a trans-national Joint Research Programme that was initiated by ERA-NET ROAD (ENR). The participating National Road Administrations (NRA) in this cross-border funded Joint Research Programme are Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and United Kingdom. They establish the Programme Executive Board (PEB) with Sweden as the Programme Leader (PL) and Austria as the Programme Executive Chair (PEC).

The PEB uses the Common Obligation Programme Model from the “ENR toolkit” to perform this cross-border funded joint call for proposals. The call for proposals is announced in the supplement of the Official Journal of the European Commission and conducted by the Swedish Road Administration under Swedish law and regulations. The EUR 1,35 million budget for this 3 year Joint Research Programme is jointly funded by all 10 funding participants of the PEB. It is foreseen to fund five to fifteen projects.

The reference number of this programme is “ENR SRO3”, because it was initiated by ENR based on the Strategic Research Opportunity (SRO) number 3.

To submit a proposal you can download the Guide for Applicants and the Application Form, here:

ENR SRO3 Call Announcement.pdf

ENR SRO3 Guide for Applicants.pdf

ENR SRO3 Application Form.doc

The call opens on 31^st of March 2008.

The call closes on 12^th of May 2008.

Projects or requests to participate must be sent to:

Swedish Road Administration, Rödavägen 1,
Attn: Dr. Christopher Patten,
S-78187 Borlänge. Tel. (46) 771 11 91 19.
Email: era-netroad@vv.se
URL: http://www.vv.se

Description of Research Needs

The adaptation of road networks to a changing climate is one of the important issues that road authorities need to address in the very near future. The purpose of this document is to describe the research needs of road owners and to support decision making concerning adaptation measures in the road infrastructure. 

Objectives of the Joint Research Programme

The road network is influenced by climate conditions. The northern European climate will in the future bring higher precipitation - more frequent and more intense rainfall, milder winters, warmer summers, an increase in wind speed and storm frequency. This will affect the road network in several ways. Higher groundwater levels will yield higher probability of floods and erosion. More rain will involve a higher risk of landslides, occurring in new locations and new types, such as slush avalanches, debris slides and mud flows. Our premise for the choice of structural solutions and dimensioning of physical protection may be incorrect for the climate conditions and existing slide protection may not be sufficient. Areas exposed to stable winter conditions may experience higher exposure to freezing and thawing. Consideration should also be given to reduced accessibility and regularity. All this requires improved emergency plans and alert systems. 

Road authorities need to evaluate the effect of climate change on the road network and take remedial action concerning design, construction and maintenance of the road network. When adapting to climate change, safety and accessibility need to be maintained.

Research idea

Road authorities are looking for project proposals that can provide them with tools to identify and prevent problems with the road infrastructure due to climate changes. This includes evaluating the impact of climate on road infrastructure, methods for calculating costs and benefits of adaptation measures and risk management.

The specific parameters of the European countries, for instance risk of flooding, snow and winds should be taken into consideration. However, road authorities are interested in a common way of estimating and prioritizing mitigation efforts/measures.

Research Areas

The research area is broad and each of the topics could be a research and development area on its own. Project proposals could include some or all of the issues addressed below. However, each project proposal should clearly state the benefit of the project outcome in the context of adaptation to climate change.

Survey of the State-of-the-Art

• Climate change scenarios (downscaling and specification for roads);
• Inventory of data collections (condition of roads & climate events, meteorological data);
• Inventory of adaptation work on standards and specifications;
• Inventory of current work outside ERA-NET ROAD;
• Development of a suitable database for the recording of experiences and solutions

Risk Analysis

Road authorities would benefit from a common procedure for analysis of climate change impact; this includes:

• Risk assessment
  • Methods for risk assessment (probability and consequences) for various types of climate events and associated road-related events
• Risk Management in cost-benefit analysis
  • Methods for calculating and comparing the costs of preventative measures with the costs of damages
• Defining the level of acceptable risk
  • Classification of risk and/or prioritising the roads and structures.

Climate Impact on Road Infrastructure

Climate parameters affect the stability of the road infrastructure and surrounding areas. Within the broad topic below, road authorities would benefit from studies of:

• Direct and indirect effects of climate parameters on roads and surrounding areas (heavy rain fall, soft underground, flooding, erosion protection etc).
• Robustness of infrastructure – structural parameters affected by climate change
• Typology of unwanted events i.e.
  • Dysfunctional drainage
  • Landslides
  • Deterioration of road standard
  • Foundation destabilisation (bridges etc.)
• The need for upgrading of design loads (snow, rain, wind and waves) for various climate scenarios

Road Infrastructure Capacity for Climate Change

Road authorities are seeking a common approach for the mapping of the condition of the existing infrastructure and carrying out practical risk and vulnerability analyses of specific road segments. The content of this work could include:

• Establishing a method for mapping and classifying important/vulnerable structures in a road network (for instance bridges crossing rivers or seas);
• Establishing and classifying vulnerability parameters (e.g. strength, drainage capacity, traffic capacity);
• Link to climate/weather/geological events; defining climate-related parameters (e.g. temperature, rain intensity).

Risk Management Options

Adaptation to climate change could go in two directions, the first involves mitigation and the second involves emergency disaster plans. Road authorities would benefit from a common approach to:

• Identifying the risk that can be managed by improvement and/or maintenance of present infrastructure.
• Identifying the risk which must be managed by emergency actions.

Conclusions

Results of research projects performed in the areas described above should provide the road authorities with new knowledge and decision making tools for:

• Adapting design rules and specifications;
• Updating Data collection, improving data quality;
• Developing risk management methods.
• Formulating quick win measures