Tuesday, 28 October 2025
Austroads has undertaken a detailed analysis to shape the potential development of its future guidance aimed at helping transport agencies address the impacts of climate change and natural hazards, and strengthen the resilience of transport systems across Australasia.
While Australia and New Zealand have long faced natural hazards, climate change is intensifying both the frequency and severity of events, creating new challenges for transport agencies.
To respond to this evolving risk, Austroads examined what resilience guidance is needed, what gaps exist, and how it can best support agencies. Drawing on stakeholder consultation and a review of national and international practice, Austroads has defined the focus for its future work and developed a guidance model that identifies the type of guidance it should produce, along with a roadmap outlining the priorities and sequence for its development.
“Both the guidance model and the roadmap are designed to guide Austroads in producing targeted, responsive, efficient, and non-duplicative guidance over the short, medium, and long term. They aim to embed resilience considerations across all future Austroads guidance while providing practical steps to strengthen agency capability and capacity,” said Joanne Vanselow, Austroads Environment and Sustainability Program Manager.
Additionally, Austroads investigated transport system climate change and natural hazard (CCNH) resilience frameworks that it may utilise to provide strategic context, define key resilience issues, and establish principles of accountability and responsibility for its member agencies. The report also defines key resilience terms, including the definition of a resilient transport system, a foundational output that underpins future resilience guidance.
Austroads further explored options for delivering comprehensive resilience guidance, such as developing standalone guides, integrating content into existing documents, or creating a suite of linked resources.
Austroads’ analysis identified five priority gaps: clarity on climate futures, valuing and monitoring resilience, assessing network-scale vulnerabilities, planning transitions to future-focused decision-making, and understanding cascading and intergenerational impacts. The guidance model and roadmap directly address these areas by providing a clear approach to develop guidance that is both relevant and actionable.
“Our roadmap sets a clear path for Austroads’ work in the coming years,” Joanne added. “It ensures that future guidance will be developed in a way that supports transport agencies and is aligned with best practice, both nationally and internationally.”
Download Climate Change and Natural Hazards Resilience Needs and Guidance Approaches
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