Cooperation with the USA on environment

Sharing knowledge

The topic of transportation infrastructure resilience and adaptation has been one of these collaboration topics since October 2013. This has resulted in exchange of knowledge, approaches, frameworks, reports and other relevant information.

Transportation infrastructure resilience and adaptation

The exchange on the topic of resilience has resulted in a mutual sharing of knowledge, experience and information in this working field, for example vulnerability and risk assessment and adaptation measures. This has resulted in a more complete set of knowledge, to a point we are ready on both sides of the ocean to implement this expertise in projects and integrate this into working procedures. 

On both sides this has already been demonstrated in projects.

Expierence and learning effect

This experience has been used to ensure better quality of projects and to enlarge the learning effect. For example information has been exchanged about the Dutch Stresstest of the national highway system.

The actual cooperation in projects in the United States has been realised by also including road authorities and knowledge centers in Washington State and North Carolina.

The focus is on climate change adaptation of roads, with for example asset management, sustainability and nature based solutions as subtopics.

Comparing methods

Within this collaboration the European ROADAPT methodology and the US methodology FHWA Climate Adaptation Framework have been compared in a Rijkswaterstaat project and in a Washington State Department of Transportation project. The outcome is that both sets of tools have a similar approach and generally result in comparable outcomes. 

However, each tool has its specific qualities and applicability. The ideal tool is different for each situation and does require expert knowledge to implement and interpret the results. This will help future users to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the tools.