Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ReCharged (Climate-aware Resilience for Sustainable Critical and interdependent Infrastructure Systems enhanced by emerging Digital Technologies)
Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2024-12-31
The performance of interdependent Transport and Energy systems, Lifelines and Assets (iTESLA) is increasingly challenged by natural hazards intensified by climate change. European natural and built ecosystems have been affected by flash floods, medicanes, wildfires, and cascading events such as landslides and debris flows. These hazards have significantly disrupted transport and energy networks and threatened community safety worldwide. For example, the mid-July 2021 floods in West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the UK caused over 220 fatalities and €46bn in losses, while the collapse of Italy’s Polcevera Viaduct in 2018 and recurrent wildfires and severe weather in Greece and Madeira further illustrate these challenges. Given that infrastructure contributes up to 70% of global GHG emissions, making iTESLA resilient is essential for achieving EU emission targets and supporting over 12 million European jobs. The ReCharged project aims to enhance iTESLA management by delivering a validated framework and visualization platform that improves decision making for infrastructure managers, in line with the EU Strategic Agenda priorities: protecting citizens, bolstering the economy, and building a sustainable, climate-neutral Europe.
The project is organized into seven work packages (WP1–WP7), with the core scientific and technical activities in WP2–WP5:
• WP1: Management and contingency planning for resilient project delivery.
• WP2: Taxonomies of iTESLA ecosystems and set-up of case studies. This WP focuses on:
– Defining representative taxonomies for transport (bridges, tunnels, roads) and energy assets (substations, distribution networks, pylons) that capture critical interdependencies.
– Identifying, prioritising, and selecting natural hazard scenarios and climate projections.
– Documenting and setting up case studies by collecting data on built assets, networks, and their dependencies.
• WP3: Emerging digital technologies for data-driven iTESLA assessment, which aims to:
– Define optimal digital technologies and data collection methods for damage identification and prediction.
– Advance algorithms for digital data processing and interpretation, with a focus on climate hazard events.
– Derive quantifiable performance indicators by integrating data-driven methods with traditional approaches.
– Provide a reliable framework for forecasting structural and operational faults via damage detection and analysis of cascading failures.
• WP4: Climate-aware resilience for sustainable iTESLA, which involves:
– Developing novel fragility and functionality loss models for transport and energy assets under various hazard scenarios.
– Creating adaptable restoration and reinstatement models reflecting operator practices and lower carbon emissions.
– Building data-driven vulnerability and recovery models that integrate environmental impact assessments and whole-life carbon evaluations.
– Establishing an integrated resilience framework with practical life-cycle resilience metrics and a visualization platform for decision making.
• WP5: Training to complement teaching and research, covering:
– A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) with microcredentials on topics like climate risk mitigation, resilient infrastructure, and digital innovation.
– Masterclasses, workshops, and a 3-day EU conference to foster knowledge transfer and research culture.
– Secondments and scientific events that strengthen the integration of academic insights with practical skills.
• WP6: Dissemination.
• WP7: Outreach activities and policy recommendations.
• WP1: Management and contingency planning for resilient project delivery.
• WP2: Taxonomies of iTESLA ecosystems and set-up of case studies. This WP focuses on:
– Defining representative taxonomies for transport (bridges, tunnels, roads) and energy assets (substations, distribution networks, pylons) that capture critical interdependencies.
– Identifying, prioritising, and selecting natural hazard scenarios and climate projections.
– Documenting and setting up case studies by collecting data on built assets, networks, and their dependencies.
• WP3: Emerging digital technologies for data-driven iTESLA assessment, which aims to:
– Define optimal digital technologies and data collection methods for damage identification and prediction.
– Advance algorithms for digital data processing and interpretation, with a focus on climate hazard events.
– Derive quantifiable performance indicators by integrating data-driven methods with traditional approaches.
– Provide a reliable framework for forecasting structural and operational faults via damage detection and analysis of cascading failures.
• WP4: Climate-aware resilience for sustainable iTESLA, which involves:
– Developing novel fragility and functionality loss models for transport and energy assets under various hazard scenarios.
– Creating adaptable restoration and reinstatement models reflecting operator practices and lower carbon emissions.
– Building data-driven vulnerability and recovery models that integrate environmental impact assessments and whole-life carbon evaluations.
– Establishing an integrated resilience framework with practical life-cycle resilience metrics and a visualization platform for decision making.
• WP5: Training to complement teaching and research, covering:
– A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) with microcredentials on topics like climate risk mitigation, resilient infrastructure, and digital innovation.
– Masterclasses, workshops, and a 3-day EU conference to foster knowledge transfer and research culture.
– Secondments and scientific events that strengthen the integration of academic insights with practical skills.
• WP6: Dissemination.
• WP7: Outreach activities and policy recommendations.
Climate-induced natural hazards result in devastating economic and societal impacts by triggering cascading failures across interdependent infrastructures. For example, disruptions in energy recovery can delay transport system repairs, while transport failures impede timely access for infrastructure maintenance, thereby increasing overall greenhouse gas emissions and economic losses. Traditional approaches tend to address these challenges in isolation, leaving significant interdependencies unaccounted for. The ReCharged project addresses this gap by developing an integrated framework and visualization platform that quantifies, visualizes, and optimizes resilience and sustainability for various hazard scenarios. By combining digital data with innovative fragility and recovery models, the project accelerates decision making, mitigates cascading effects, and supports efficient management of iTESLA assets—ultimately contributing to a more resilient and sustainable infrastructure ecosystem in Europe.