Flex Fund interview: resilience and adaptation in Devon’s highways assets

Through a series of calls between 2024 and early 2026, the DARe Hub will fund additional research projects to complement its core research programme.

One of the projects from our first Flex Fund call is ‘Demonstrating the Value of Considering Resilience and Adaptation in Devon’s Highways Assets’, led by Dr Dan Lash from the University of Exeter. 

What issue does your project seek to address?

Our project is looking at the impact of climate change on two asset classes – highways and bridges – managed by the local highways authority Devon County Council. Specifically, it looks to assess the relevance and quantitative impact of 43 physical climate risks identified by the Department for Transport for local highways. In addition to seeking to get more definitive answers regarding these risks, as there is not currently a climate change risk assessment in place for Devon, the research is seeking to identify barriers to undertaking these analyses by local highways authorities, for example around availability, quality, and application of data.

Why is it important to consider resilience and adaptation in asset maintenance and management planning?

The research is highlighting that it is very important to consider adaptation in road assets. The analysis of a broad range of risks is showing that whilst sometimes climate change will bring benefits (for example, fewer freeze-thaw cycles leading to a reduced need for gritting, or accidents to the public), on balance these are likely to be significantly outweighed by impacts both to DCC around maintenance of the assets (for example, degradation of road surfaces due to changing rainfall and temperature patterns), and to the public (for example, due to road and bridge closures leading to diversions and delays). The availability of early information can help with proactive maintenance or prioritisation of works, subject to budget availability.

What types of asset information are most critical for assessing resilience?

There is no single answer to this question. We have taken the view that we will work with the information that is available from the highways authority and combine with the best projection data available for the various climate risks. Both these sources are quite variable, depending on the specific risk or asset. We found that there are potentially valuable rich datasets – for example very high resolution road surface condition data from SCANNER, or a detailed structures database that had well over a hundred fields. However, even with these, often there were missing critical pieces of information, for example the construction layers of the highway. This meant that often very high-level and potentially inaccurate estimates were needed. The work has highlighted a need for the development of streamlined assessment procedures that can rapidly address risk to highways, as typically a local authority would not have the time or expertise available to undertake these assessments.

What do you think the greatest risk to highways assets and infrastructure is?

The greatest risk we identified to the condition of the network was accelerated damage to the surface of the road network which could add £10 million in cost to the upkeep of the roads by the 2050s. In addition to this are impacts around disruption caused by flooding of roads or scour to bridges, both of which could lead to additional delays to the public. If these instances become commonplace (for example significant additional disruption every year), then these could eclipse the specific costs of maintaining the assets.