Advancing Climate Action with Regional Twins

Transportation Planning and Hazard Mitigation have often historically been addressed in isolation. This is changing with the IIJA's PROTECT program, which offers a promising opportunity to better integrate these practices through a substantial investment of $8.7 billion over 5 years. As local, state and regional authorities, alongside private real estate interests grow more aware of current and future climate hazards, they are also awakening to the need for better insight into current and future hazards and appropriate mitigative actions. At the state and regional level, governments generally rely on data at hand which, in the case of Resiliency Improvement Plans, can lead to myopic adaptation programs that heavily prioritize vehicle throughput to the exclusion of more vulnerable transportation system users. This can be avoided through creative applications of existing technologies.

This session will address frameworks for gauging suitability of climate risk analytics platforms and offer a tour of the landscape of AI-augmented utilities for modelling climate vulnerability. It will delve deep into practical applications of digital twin models to climate resilience, specifically how they enable green infrastructure to be systematically measured against grey infrastructure interventions, enabling planners to synergistically address environmental design inequities while mitigating risks for all modes.

Access this session with closed captions (Wordly)