Future Weather & Climate Extremes Series




Future Weather & Climate Extremes Series

The third series of virtual events will continue exploring the 2021 ASCE publication, “The Impacts of Future Weather and Climate Extremes on United States’ Infrastructure: Assessing and Prioritizing Adaptation Actions.” The publication, and the previous two event series, explore both the vulnerability of the United States’ infrastructure to current weather and climate extremes and the fragility of these systems in the face of climate change. The publication was released in Fall of 2021 and is now available from the ASCE Library. Series 3 offers three sessions focusing on Coastal and Climate Change Adaptation from the coastal region in Virginia, to the greater metropolitan areas of New York City, and on a national scale in Canada.


Series 3: Schedule-At-A-Glance

  • September 8 (2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST): Coastal Adaptation & Resilience in Virginia
  • September 15 (2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST): Climate Change Adaptation for New York City Structures and Infrastructures
  • September 22 (2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST): Climate Change Adaptation for Canadian Core Public Structures and Infrastructures

Cost per Session:

  • ASCE Member - $40
  • Nonmember - $50
  • Students - Free with Free ASCE Student Membership Join Now

Register for all three events in the series and receive a 20% discount code for the hard copy or e-book publication: "The Impacts of Future Weather and Climate Extremes on United States Infrastructure: Assessing and Prioritizing Adaptation Actions"


Title
: Coastal Adaptation & Resilience in Virginia
 

Instructors: Mr. C.J. Bodnar, P.E., Technical Services Program Manager, Virginia Beach Public Works Stormwater Engineering Center; Mr. Matthew Dalon, P.E., CFM, Program Manager, Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation

Date: September 8, 2022

This webinar introduces experiences and lessons learned focused on coastal adaptation and resilience in Virginia. The City of Virginia Beach has developed a comprehensive city-wide program addressing rising sea levels and recurrent flooding risk. Their Adaptation Strategy, published in March 2020 outlines a proactive long-term approach to enable the City of Virginia Beach to adapt to changing environmental conditions. The Commonwealth of Virginia developed the Virginia Coastal Resilience Master Plan (CRMP) in December 2021. The first Virginia CRMP is a call to action for the Commonwealth. Nearly six million people, or 70% of the state’s population reside in coastal Virginia. Phase 1 of the CRMP is focused on the impacts of tidal and storm surge coastal flooding in Virginia including social, natural, and built assets. This webinar provides an overview of the City of Virginia Beach’s Sea Level Wise Adaptation Strategy and Virginia’s Coastal Resilience Master Plan and presents the key strategies that have been developed as well as future plans. The webinar is organized to cover: (i) Overview of the frameworks used in the Virginia Beach and Commonwealth of Virginia plan development; (ii) Overview of the climate models used, guidance on selecting sea level rise scenarios, as well as precipitation scenarios; and (iii) Discussion of how codes standards and building requirements in Virginia Beach and the Commonwealth of Virginia have been modified to account for the future impacts of climate change in coastal Virginia.


Title
: Climate Change Adaptation for New York City Structures and Infrastructures

Instructors: Ms. Erika Jozwiak, ENV SP, Senior Program Manager, Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice; Dr. Christian Braneon, Co-Director, Environmental Justice & Climate Just Cities Network, Columbia Climate School

Date: September 15, 2022

This webinar introduces New York City’s climate change adaptation initiatives including (i) the work being produced by the NYC Panel on Climate Change (NPCC); (ii) the NYC Mayor’s Office of Resiliency’s Climate Resiliency Design Guidelines (CRDG); and (iii) the recently enacted Local Law 41 which introduced a pilot program for certain NYC capital projects to adhere to the CRDG and further achieve a climate resiliency score metric.

The NPCC is a critical part of the Mayor’s Office of Resiliency initiatives, and comprises a 20-member independent advisory body that synthesizes climate change data for the NYC-area. NPCC started in 2009 and was codified in Local Law 42 of 2012. NPCC Assessment Reports provide authoritative, actionable science on future climate impacts to the NYC-area. Dr. Christian Braneon, NPCC Co-chair, will discuss his involvement with the NPCC process and how it promotes inclusive climate action and climate-smart planning to achieve region-wide resilience and environmental justice.

The CRDG provide step-by-step instructions to go beyond building codes and standards, which are informed by historic climate data, by looking to site-specific, future-focused climate data for use in the design of private and public structures and infrastructures. The CRDG have been developed in coordination with the NPCC and provide a framework for a holisitic design process – during project scoping or request for proposal (RFP) development, through preliminary and final design – for new construction and substantial improvements. Erika Jozwiak will discuss her role at the NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justicce in implementing the CRDG and Local Law 41.


Title
: Climate Change Adaptation for Canadian Core Public Structures and Infrastructures 

Instructors: Dr. Zoubir Lounis, P.E., M.ASCE, Principal Research Officer, National Research Council Canada; Dr. Alex Cannon, Research Scientist, Environment and Climate Change Canada; Dr. Sihan Li, P.E., CRM, M.ASCE, Senior Scientist, Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin Inc. (RWDI)

Date: September 22, 2022

This webinar introduces experiences and lessons learned through an applied research initiative focused on climate change adaptation of Canadian core public structures and infrastructures. Canada’s climate is warming at twice the rate of global warming. The cost of adaptation to climate change and extreme weather events has gradually increased and is estimated to reach $21-43 billion per year by 2050 for Canada. A comprehensive research initiative on climate-resilient buildings and infrastructure that involved many partners and stakeholders was led by the National Research Council of Canada from 2016-2020. This webinar introduces this Canadian research initiative, which involved climate scientists, structural engineers and code and standard developers, and presents some of the key findings. This webinar provides an overview of Canada’s initiative on climate-resilient buildings and core public infrastructure, scientific evidence for future climate projections, ready-to-use climatic design datasets, and engineering implementation of climate change provisions for the design of climate-resilient buildings and infrastructure. The webinar is organized to cover three critical aspects, namely: (i) Overview of the overall Canadian research initiative on climate-resilient buildings and core public infrastructure; (ii) Overview of the climate models used, guidance on selecting different emission scenarios, confidence levels in temperature, precipitation and wind loads, as well as illustrative future climatic data needed for the design of buildings and bridges; and (iii) Discussion of the engineering implementation of future projections of climatic data for the structural design of buildings and effects on the climatic design wind loads and ground snow loads.

2021 Future Weather & Climate Extremes Series - Previous Series


This is a three-part series of virtual events exploring the 2021 ASCE publication, “The Impacts of Future Weather and Climate Extremes on United States’ Infrastructure: Assessing and Prioritizing Adaptation Actions.” The publication, and the event series, explore both the vulnerability of the United States’ infrastructure to current weather and climate extremes and the fragility of these systems in the face of climate change. The publication is expected to be available in Fall of 2021.

Series 2: Schedule-At-A-Glance

  • January 6: Effects of Climate Adjusted Extremes on Integrity and Performance of Interdependent Infrastructure (“Analysis”)
  • January 13: Climate Adaptation and Resilience Engineering by Design and Operations (“Design”)
  • January 20: Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Planning: Social and Economic Considerations

General questions? Contact Brian Sien; Registration questions? Contact Customer Service.