01662992

Component

There are certain evidences that greenhouse gas emissions resulted from human activities have caused climate change. The intergovernmental panel for climate change (IPCC) has certified 0.2°C of increase in mean temperature per decade. Non-motorized transportation is considered as one of the major mitigation strategies to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions and make urbanized communities sustainable. This proves the importance of identifying facilities such as trails that are more vulnerable to the effects of sea level rise to start adaptations as early as possible. This paper investigates the effect of sea level rise on trails and bike routes in the State of Delaware. Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to estimate the distance of inundation, and the maximum depth of water on affected facilities. These variables were applied to assess the vulnerability of the affected trails and bike routes. The result of the vulnerability assessment was reported as the level of service of facilities under different sea level rise projections. Results show that there is a significant gap between the number of facilities that will be damaged if sea level rises 6 feet rather than 2 feet. As sea level rise projection gets higher, the number of facilities with lower level of service increase.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee A0020T Special Task Force on Climate Change and Energy.

18-04905

English

13p

2018

Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; Maps; References; Tables

Bikeways; Climate change; Environmental impacts; Geographic information systems; Level of service; Nonmotorized transportation; Risk assessment; Sea level; Sustainable transportation; Trails

Delaware

Environment; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; Terminals and Facilities

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2018 Paper #18-04905

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 8 2018 11:13AM