Abstract Manager

Climate change impacts, especially in terms of rising temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns, have been noted in several regions across Canada over the past two decades. From a pavement/asset management perspective, such changes raise concerns about pavement serviceability and sustainability since both temperature and excess precipitation can affect the pavement material properties.

A risk assessment can be used to evaluate how climate change will affect a pavement network. Climate change risk assessment considers the likelihood, consequence, and required response to climate change impacts, and the options for addressing these impacts under financial and societal constraints.

This paper presents the methodology used for a climate change risk assessment for the Regional Municipality of York in Ontario (York Region). The results of the risk assessment were incorporated into the York Region`s Pavement Asset Management Plan (Pavement AMP).

The study included:

1. Evaluating the likelihood of climatic changes in York Region. These climatic changes include the increase in annual mean temperature, extreme heat, annual precipitation, and extreme storms.
2. Conducting quantitative analysis to determine the consequence of climatic changes on pavement performance. Adjustments to the Region`s pavement deterioration curves were used to quantify the change in performance related to climate change impacts. These changes resulted in changes to pavement treatment timing and life cycle costs.
3. Evaluating different resilient pavement rehabilitation treatments to select the least impactful treatment in terms of Green House Gas emissions.

As a case study example, risk assessment results are presented in terms of likelihood vs consequence, in which risk factors were rated in a scale of 1 to 25 (low to high risk). For each risk factor, a mitigation strategy was proposed. The methodology and findings presented in this paper can serve as a reference for the development of climate change risk assessment, and the subsequent implementation in AMPs.