MULTI-HAZARD FLEXIBLE CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION FOR PORT INFRASTRUCTURES

Ports are essential nodes for coastal and maritime transportation, being a key source of income and economic activities of coastal zones. This significance, jointly with their location in coastal areas, prone to climate- driven impacts, makes them highly susceptible to Climate Change (CC) and Sea Level Rise (SLR) effects. Therefore, consideration of CC induced variability is necessary within adaptation assessment frameworks, which evaluate the performance of both port services and assets under the affection of interacting climatic drivers. However, although CC affection to port infrastructures is virtually certain, there are clear uncertainties on those changes’ rates (Christensen et al., 2010) and the derived CC-impacts. New adaptation methodologies ought to be developed to hamper the effects of future’s unpredictability. Including flexibility (Wilby and Dessai, 2010) within adaptation strategies is emerging as an effective solution, as they allow to stablish a portfolio of diverse adaptation measures (Haasnoot et al., 2012) that might be applied only when and where necessary. These approaches combine a full probabilistic CC risk assessment with the characterization of a portfolio of adaptation measures, alongside with the definition of a coherent monitoring strategy of the climate drivers and derived impacts that may pose the highest threats to the evaluated infrastructures. Thus, a robust tool for port planners and decision makers is developed to define which climate variables ought to be followed and which set of actions may be performed to guarantee the infrastructure’s performance in an uncertain future climate.