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U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) installations have been affected by extreme weather events, such as wind and flood damage from Hurricane Sally at Naval Air Station Pensacola and flooding from severe storms at Offutt Air Force Base. More-frequent and less-extreme events, such as recurrent flooding or hailstorms, also disrupt DoD missions and result in considerable financial loss. DoD needs a way to compare the damage costs resulting from extreme weather events against the costs of mitigating that damage through enhanced installation resilience. There is currently no DoD-validated model or method for systematically comparing climate hazard damage costs against the costs of investing in resilience options. This report begins to address this gap by assessing the relevance and limitations of one analytic approach. Climate change is likely to increase the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, but it is difficult to predict with certainty which installations will be hit and when, or even by what type of hazard. It is important for DoD to account for this uncertainty by setting priorities for where and how much to invest in installation resilience to climate-driven hazards. Tools such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency's natural hazard analysis tool (Hazus) could be used to further understanding of the value of investing in installation resilience to climate-driven hazards. In 19 case studies, the annualized cost of a resilience option was compared with the averted damage over that option's lifetime under a variety of disaster scenarios to screen for potentially attractive resilience investment options.

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The authors of this report consider the exposure of Department of the Air Force (DAF) installations to flooding, high winds, and wildfires—hazards that have affected DAF installations in the recent past. The authors characterize exposure using three different types of data: base boundaries, geospatial data on airfield and select electric power infrastructure that supports DAF installations, and publicly available data on natural hazards. The presented analysis should be viewed as a first step toward more thoroughly cataloging installation exposure to natural hazards, rather than as a definitive or comprehensive assessment. Additionally, for the high winds hazard, the authors compare the policy options of preemptively hardening a set of installations and the potential costs of rebuilding post-disaster. Finally, they consider wider application of hazard seasonality data to inform the selection of backup sites for contingency planning in cases where a disruption forces a temporary mission relocation. Some installations face high levels of exposure to the natural hazards considered in this analysis. The following coastal installations face multiple hazards: Eglin, Hurlburt, Keesler, Langley, MacDill, Patrick, and Tyndall. Although the DAF should be able to improve decisionmaking by making some decisions at the enterprise level, the uncertainties surrounding these decisions will be great, and there is no substitute for deeper-dive assessments conducted locally. The process and inputs that the DAF selects for making investment decisions regarding natural hazard resilience should be flexible, allowing for updates as new information becomes available.

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National Critical Functions (NCFs) are government and private-sector functions so vital that their disruption would debilitate security, the economy, public health, or safety. Researchers developed a risk management framework to assess and manage the risk that climate change poses to the NCFs and use the framework to assess 27 priority NCFs. This report details the risk assessment portions of the framework. The team assessed risk based on a scale that the National Risk Management Center uses that ranges from a rating of 1 (no disruption or normal operations) to 5 (critical disruption on a national scale). A rating of 3 (moderate disruption) on the national level, although it still allows normal functioning on a national scale, should be regarded as highly significant and includes the potential for major disruptions or failure of NCFs at a local or regional level and for significant economic loss, health and safety impacts, and other consequences. Using this risk rating scale and projected changes in eight climate drivers identified in the analysis (flooding, sea-level rise, tropical cyclones and hurricanes, severe storm systems, extreme cold, extreme heat, wildfire, and drought), the researchers examined how NCFs could be affected by and at risk from climate change in three future time periods (by 2030, by 2050, and by 2100) and two future greenhouse gas emission scenarios (current and high).

Infrastructure (Economics) --- Climatic changes --- Public works --- Forecasting. --- Economic aspects --- Evaluation. --- Protection.

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One in a series examining the risks climate change presents to the United States, this report examines climate adaptation strategies for 25 National Critical Functions (NCFs) at greatest risk of disruption from climate change. Climate drivers include major weather events, such as hurricanes or floods, and the effects of sea-level rise or drought. The authors examined the adaptation strategies available, how to assess their effectiveness and feasibility, and what tools are available to assist with these efforts. The focus was on impact pathways — how climate change might disrupt an NCF — each of which is a combination of climate drivers (such as drought and flooding) and impact mechanisms (such as physical damage and workforce shortages) affecting a given NCF. The emphasis is on strategies that owner-operators—state, local, tribal, and territorial governments and private-sector stakeholders — of critical functions might implement to adapt to such climate risks.