AECOM’s findings helped inform Infrastructure Victoria’s report, Weathering the Storm: Adapting Victoria’s Infrastructure to Climate Change. The report outlines actionable recommendations to better equip Victoria’s infrastructure for more frequent and severe weather conditions, safeguard communities, minimise disruptions, and reduce disaster recovery costs.
Infrastructure Victoria’s report made seven recommendations to the Victorian Government. Key themes in the recommendations include building the capacity of infrastructure managers, embedding climate risk considerations into decision-making, funding, planning and asset management practices, and establishing common guidance to enable agency implementation.
Efficient and in-depth climate risk assessment
The initial phase of work undertaken by AECOM involved a risk assessment that filtered the priority sectors and infrastructure types at the most significant risk from climate change. The second phase focused on more detailed investigations across the priority sectors: electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure, public hospitals and the road network.
AECOM’s sustainability and resilience team worked closely with its sector-specific technical specialists to understand the design and operation of each type of infrastructure and engaged with government and sector stakeholders to determine the most significant risks to each sector. To understand how sector risks may be experienced differently across the state, AECOM used geographic information systems (GIS) to conduct a regional exposure analysis. This was complemented by the identification of adaptation actions that build on the Government’s sector-based adaptation action plans.
Building a legacy for future assessments
The adaptation principles and actions identified in AECOM’s report will support key policymakers in taking direct action and shaping policy changes to build infrastructure resilience in Victoria and safeguard communities in the face of climate change.
Infrastructure Victoria’s report demonstrates the depth and longevity of our climate resilience capabilities, drawing on AECOM’s insights from projects delivered as early as 2006 to more recently in 2023. These projects include the pioneering Infrastructure and Climate Change Risk Assessment for Victoria (2006), the more recent Climate Risk Ready New South Wales guidance (2023), and our Climate Change Consequences study developed specifically to inform Infrastructure Victoria’s Weathering the Storm: Adapting Victoria’s Infrastructure to Climate Change report.