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Cover of Climate Change and Natural Hazards Resilience Needs and Guidance Approaches
Climate Change and Natural Hazards Resilience Needs and Guidance Approaches
  • Publication no: AP-R744-25
  • ISBN: 978-1-922700-84-1
  • Published: 23 October 2025

This report presents a strategic framework and roadmap to guide the development and updating of Austroads resilience guidance for transport agencies in Australia and New Zealand.

Austroads has identified the critical need to enhance the resilience of the land transport system to climate change and natural hazards (CCNH). The increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events, alongside long-term climatic changes, pose significant risks to transport infrastructure. These challenges disrupt the movement of people and goods, impact economic activities, and threaten community safety.

The report investigates transport system CCNH resilience frameworks that Austroads may utilise to provide strategic context, define key resilience issues and establish principles of accountability and responsibility for its member agencies. It explores options for delivering comprehensive resilience guidance – including potential standalone guides, integration into existing documents, and a mix of linked documents – and provides recommendations and a roadmap for implementation.

By addressing gaps in existing guidance and proposing project solutions for each element, the report contributes key insights and recommendations to improve the resilience of the land transport system in a complex environment.

Download the Microsoft Excel document containing Table B.1 from Appendix B. This document provides an assessment of Austroads guidance documents for coverage of climate change and natural hazards, rated as high, mid, or low to identify gaps across the suite.

Watch a recording of the webinar to learn more.

  • Executive Summary
  • Acronyms
  • Key Terms and Resilience Language Guide
  • 1. Introduction and Context
    • 1.1 Purpose
    • 1.2 Project requirements
    • 1.3 Project scope
    • 1.4 Structure of this report
  • 2. Methodology
    • 2.1 Project approach
      • 2.1.1 Literature review
      • 2.1.2 Stakeholder survey
      • 2.1.3 Stakeholder workshops
      • 2.1.4 Additional interviews
      • 2.1.5 Past and current projects
  • 3. Understanding the Challenge
    • 3.1 Climate change and the new world
      • 3.1.1 Differentiating adaptation, mitigation and resilience
      • 3.1.2 Planning can no longer be based on historical trends
      • 3.1.3 Planning for multiple climate futures
      • 3.1.4 The rising importance of climate risk disclosure
      • 3.1.5 Stepping back to move forward
    • 3.2 Current CCNH impacts
    • 3.3 Future CCNH impacts
  • 4. A Resilient Transport System Framework
    • 4.1 Overview of defining factors
    • 4.2 Definition of a ‘resilient transport system’
    • 4.3 Relationship of transport resilience to other realms of resilience
    • 4.4 Resilient transport system framework
  • 5. Gap Analysis
    • 5.1 Overview
      • 5.1.1 Principles of responsibility
    • 5.2 Climate futures clarity
      • 5.2.1 Understanding how to apply climate science
      • 5.2.2 Partnerships with climate science bodies
      • 5.2.3 Consistent standards
    • 5.3 Network-scale vulnerability
    • 5.4 Valuing and monitoring resilience
      • 5.4.1 Valuing resilience
      • 5.4.2 Monitoring resilience
    • 5.5 Planning for transition risk
    • 5.6 Cascading, compounding and intergenerational impacts
    • 5.7 Austroads’ guidance gaps
  • 6. CCNH Resilience Guidance Model
    • 6.1 Guidance model considerations
      • 6.1.1 Transport System CCNH Resilience practice
      • 6.1.2 Austroads guidance types and development
      • 6.1.3 Accountability and responsibility for Austroads Guide updates
      • 6.1.4 Practitioners’ preferences
    • 6.2 Assessment of CCNH guidance model options
    • 6.3 Discussion
    • 6.4 Recommended model
  • 7. CCNH Resilience Guidance Development Roadmap
    • 7.1 Establishing a ‘Resilience Landing Page’ – Workstream 1
    • 7.2 Address priority gaps – Workstream 2
    • 7.3 Address gaps within principal guidance – Workstream 3
    • 7.4 The role of the annual Sustainability Stocktake
      • 7.4.1 Monitoring industry changes to inform the CCNH Roadmap
      • 7.4.2 How the focus of the Stocktake can address resilience gaps over time
      • 7.4.3 Responsibility for monitoring resilience practice across the industry
  • 8. References
  • Appendix A Stakeholder Engagement – Further Information
    • A.1 Survey questions
    • A.2 Survey Key Findings
    • A.3 Summary of additional interviews
    • A.4 Summary of workshop findings
    • A.5 Subject matter experts and stakeholders engaged
  • Appendix B Component-Level Gap Analysis
  • Appendix C Roadmap Overview
  • Appendix D Project Proposals
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