Infrastructure Pathways is an easy-to-navigate guidance on climate-resilient infrastructure, organised by lifecycle phase. Which phase of the infrastructure lifecycle do you work on? Move the cursor to find the name of the phase and click on the map.
Click on the Infrastructure Pathways icon on the top bar to go back to the home page at any time.
The guidance in each of the 9 lifecycle phases is organised in the same way, using a consistent format.
- Introduction, summarising the objective of the lifecycle phase and key considerations
- Lead Practitioners, identifying the key practitioner group(s) relevant to the lifecycle phase
- Key Inputs, explaining the key inputs and reflections from other phases into the lifecycle phase
- The Basics and the Shift, a description of the traditional actions and decisions made by practitioners in the lifecycle phase, the ways that climate change has altered them and the shift that needs to happen to build climate resilience
- Integrated Guidance, guidance summarised from hundreds of publications providing practical actions (organised by themes), with links to related existing publications, resources and tools, and short illustrative case studies
- Key Resources, providing a selection of the most useful existing resources related to the concepts and actions of the lifecycle phase
- Themes, headings under which the guidance is organised, allowing for easy navigation to topics of interest
- Actions, action-oriented statements geared towards the key practitioners of each phase with distilled guidance, examples and links to other references, tools and resources
- Case Studies, short examples of the actions put into practice
- Co-Benefit Considerations, short descriptions linking the main themes of each lifecycle phase to key considerations for addressing climate change mitigation and ensuring equity while pursuing climate resilience
- Downstream Benefits, explaining how actions taken in the current lifecycle phase have resilience benefits downstream
- References, a list of the resources referenced in the Integrated Guidance section
Integrated guidance
The Integrated Guidance section is the heart of the resource. It is organised into Themes and Key Actions. It starts with Key Resources and a summary of Key Actions at the beginning of the content, with each action provided as a hyperlink.
Within the content, certain parts are highlighted, including the cross-cutting resilience themes, see further details below on this page.
Selected Case Studies are presented under the Key Actions. Click on a case study to open a pop-up window.
Other ways to access content
In addition to reviewing the Integrated Guidance provided in each of the 9 lifecycle phases, users have several other ways of accessing relevant content through the website.
Navigate by Practitioner: Users can use the summary table of themes and actions to explore and identify actions that are relevant to their practitioner group. This feature creates a customised list of recommended actions and associated curated guidance that a specific practitioner group is responsible for leading and/or involved in. Select a practitioner type, then click on it to highlight the actions relevant to that group.
Cross-cutting resilience themes
Resilience thinking concepts are featured within the content of Infrastructure Pathways, with the following icons used to highlight these ‘golden threads’ across the phases of the infrastructure lifecycle. Content related to cross-cutting resilience themes (resilience-based processes and resilience outcomes) is highlighted across the Themes and Actions. Users can click on a specific cross-cutting theme icon (e.g. inclusive engagement) to highlight all content related to that topic.
Resilience process:
Systems thinking – systems thinking is fundamental to identifying and addressing the complexity associated with infrastructure systems operating in a changing climate.
Inclusive engagement – fostering broad and inclusive engagement in idea generation and decision-making across the infrastructure lifecycle supports the identification of more appropriate and sustainable solutions and facilitates a broader array of positive outcomes and co-benefits to maximise the value of infrastructure investment.
Evidence-based decision-making – collecting, sharing and using data to make informed choices supports rational and defensible decisions related to the planning and operation of infrastructure.
Future-oriented planning – the prolonged lifespan of infrastructure in the context of a rapidly changing climate necessitates a future-oriented approach to planning, considering not only the conditions and context of today but also those expected over the coming decades.
Reflection and iteration – because complex adaptive systems do not always respond in a predicable way to various inputs and disturbances, it is essential to continually monitor and evaluate progress and use this input to learn and iteratively adapt strategies and processes.
Resilience outcomes:
Service continuity and reliability – the most basic objective of climate-resilient infrastructure is to provide reliable delivery of services to users who depend on them. This objective relates to the physical resilience of infrastructure as well as the resilience of its operational systems.
Environmental co-benefits – climate-resilient infrastructure supports resilience through infrastructure, by minimising negative environmental degradation, water and energy use, and carbon emissions and by maximising positive impacts, including promoting nature-based solutions and improving environmental health.
Equity and social co-benefits – climate-resilient infrastructure also supports resilience through infrastructure by seeking to increase social cohesion, equity, and well-being.
Capacity building – one specific social co-benefit that climate-resilient infrastructure aims to achieve is capacity building, or the improvement of individual skills and abilities and organisational or community processes and resources[1]