Climate change has become one of the greatest challenges for the planning, design, construction, maintenance, and operation of infrastructure. Economic losses from extreme weather events increase every year, driven by two main factors: greater exposure due to infrastructure development and more intense weather phenomena.
Climate change is no longer a future threat: in 2024, 90% of global losses (US$368 billion) originated from extreme events. Since the 1990s, these losses have grown between 5% and 7% annually, confirming that resilience is a strategic priority.
Heatwaves, heavy rains, and floods affect the functionality of transport, energy, or water systems, as most were not designed to withstand historically extreme conditions. In some cases, asset vulnerability and lack of adaptation worsen the impact.
This scenario requires a review of decision-making in infrastructure management, addressing three fundamental axes:
- Evolution of climate risk and its impact on infrastructure.
- Adaptation measures from design to operation.
- Risk transfer and the role of traditional insurance and alternative solutions.
Relevant Extreme Weather Events and Main Consequences for Infrastructure
Key data confirm a clear trend: more frequency, more impact, and higher costs.
- 2024: global losses of US$368 billion (a 13% increase compared to the 21st-century average). For the fifth consecutive year, the average of the last 25 years (US$324 billion) has been exceeded.
- Frequency: weather events between 1970-2010 multiplied by 5 compared to the first half of the 20th century.
- Europe (1980-2023): losses of €700 billion, 22% of which occurred between 2021 and 2023. Floods and storms are the main risk, representing 70% of the total.
- By event type, hydro-climatic risks (floods and storms) are the main causes of direct damage to infrastructure, while heatwaves and droughts have an indirect impact on productivity, transport, and energy.
- Transport infrastructure (roads, railways, ports, airports) and energy infrastructure (networks, dams, solar and wind farms) are the most vulnerable, followed by drinking water and sanitation systems.
This situation leads us to the need to incorporate adaptation measures in construction and operation.
Adaptation Measures: In Construction and Operation
Risk management must be dynamic and flexible, considering not only historical data but also future climate projections.
According to the FERMA report (Next Report 2025) [https://ferma.eu/next-report-2025/], risk management must be dynamic and flexible, highlighting as a crucial measure the updating of technical regulations and construction and operation standards.
Focusing on design and construction, the recommendations are as follows:
- Define scenarios based on future climate projections, not just historical data.
- Increase safety coefficients in design criteria.
- Resize hydraulic elements and reinforce foundations and earthworks not only to withstand average daily values but also extreme winds or occasional heavy rains.
- Use resistant materials.
- Incorporate nature-based solutions.
- Strategically locate assets, avoiding flood-prone, landslide, or fire-risk areas.
- Incorporate redundancy in critical systems to ensure operation after any event, especially in electrical or hydraulic elements.
In the operation phase, recommendations focus on:
- Strengthening preventive maintenance with inspections and monitoring of main structures and slopes.
- Periodically updating maintenance plans according to climate evidence.
- Incorporating technological innovations in maintenance, such as early warning systems, field sensors, digital twins, etc.
- Reviewing operation plans by incorporating possible staggered shutdown plans or activating response protocols based on a meteorological “trigger.”
In this adaptation, the use of technology is crucial. Digitalization and predictive models are necessary for simulating future scenarios and making informed risk management decisions.
Risk Transfer and Long-Term Recommendations
The perception of climate risk in insurance has shifted from being a distant or unlikely risk to almost a systemic risk that conditions coverage terms, deductibles, and even capacity.
Risk transfer has always been based on historical data, but we used to face a stable climate; now, we are facing more uncertain and complex future scenarios, requiring more research and study of foreseeable future scenarios.
Traditional insurance, damage policies, allow us to transfer catastrophic risk, but we are at a point where, although rates seem to stabilize, coverage conditions reduce the possibilities of transfer for insureds with higher deductibles, reduced limits for some risks, and the inclusion of some exclusions.
Insurance is a strategic partner for the infrastructure manager; it not only allows us to transfer risks we cannot manage but is essential for financing projects. However, for certain assets and risks, it is advisable to complement traditional insurance with additional solutions, such as parametric insurance.
Parametric insurance responds to the increase in climate risks and a coverage gap, as well as addressing complex problems.
Parametric insurance is a type of insurance where compensation does not depend on the actual damage suffered but on the fulfillment of a previously defined parameter (for example, rainfall level, wind speed, temperature). When the parameter reaches the agreed threshold, automatic payment is triggered, allowing for speed, transparency, and coverage even without direct physical damage.
Traditional insurance remains strategic, but in some cases, it is necessary to complement it with parametric insurance, which:
- Covers losses without physical damage.
- Offers immediate payments according to agreed parameters.
- Provides additional capacity compared to traditional insurance.
Conclusions
- Climate change makes resilience and adaptation a strategic obligation to keep infrastructure insurable.
- Resilience means anticipating, resisting, adapting, and recovering from extreme events, ensuring continuity and reducing losses.
- Risk transfer through traditional and parametric insurance is useful but needs to be complemented with comprehensive risk management strategies.
- It is key to incorporate adaptation in design and operation, along with digitalization and intelligent monitoring.
- Effective management requires digital tools, predictive models, updated regulations, and multisectoral collaboration.
- Methodologies and platforms such as RIMAROCC, ROADAPT, and ADAPT promote safer and more sustainable infrastructure in the face of future climate scenarios.
At Globalvia, we are aware of the importance of being prepared for climate events that may impact our infrastructure, which requires comprehensive risk management within the company. To this end, we work on a cross-cutting approach in collaboration with all our teams, to include and consider all possible future scenarios that may impact us. Our goal is to anticipate all these scenarios to provide a quick and effective response that enables business continuity or the restoration of activity as soon as possible, should it be interrupted.