The ACCREU project workshop on “Climate risk and adaptation strategies for supply chains and transport infrastructure” was held on July 2nd 2025 as part of ACCREU research activities to develop guidance on Adaptation Decision Types. The workshop was one of a series focusing on such ADTs, each focusing on a set of specific case studies within ACCREU.
The University of Graz and Deltares organized the online workshop to discuss, enrich and validate research outcomes of two case studies, one on road and rail infrastructure in Austria and one on supply chain resilience in the electronics sector. Over 30 participants were in attendance, representing stakeholders from both road and rail transport infrastructure operators in Austria and abroad, government ministry employees and policy advisors as well as European firms and industry associations interested in supply chain resilience.
The workshop was organized in two parts, beginning with a series of presentations to update participants on relevant outcomes of the ACCREU project and case studies as well as introduce an approach to think about adaptation strategies more broadly. This was then followed by break-out sessions where transport and supply chain issues were discussed in collaboration with the workshop participants.
Following an introduction to the ACCREU project, its case studies and relevant IPCC findings from Birgit Bednar-Friedl of the University of Graz, Alexander Marbler (also of Uni Graz) provided an overview on related ACCREU research in Work Package 2 focusing on indirect climate impacts, elaborating on quantitative analysis illustrating to what degree supply chain connections intensify climate impacts within Europe.
This was followed by presentations on the two ACCREU case studies of interest. Alexander Marbler presented the current results of the case on supply chain risk and adaptation, highlighting the adaptation options as well as associated barriers, enablers, and path dependencies identified by the stakeholder companies in previous interviews. Keith Williges (University of Graz) presented results of ongoing work with Deltares focused on transportation infrastructure, specifically, estimates of the current and future potential damage to such rail and road assets from flooding, taking into account the potential for climate change to increase extreme event impacts.
Finally, Daniel Gonzalez from Deltares presented an analogous case study on transport infrastructure, focused on the Rhine river basin in Germany as part of the MIRACA project, to shift the discussion from climate impacts to adaptation, and introduce an emerging methodology to typologize and assess the applicability of adaptation strategies for flooding impacts on transportation infrastructure.
For the second portion of the workshop, participants divided into two groups focused on transport infrastructure and supply chains, to discuss pre-prepared questions from the research team in greater depth.
The transport infrastructure group focused on moving beyond impacts to being thinking about modeling adaptation strategies, with emphasis on contrasting current approaches to disaster risk and adaptation with the potential need for accelerated or more aggressive action if future damages increase. While current approaches to adaptation were seen as more reactive and incremental in nature, some country examples did show that large scale events leading to significant damages could lead policymakers to shift from this stance to a more aggressive, transformative approach. Most stakeholders emphasized a context-dependent nature of adaptation, with a focus on building back better and taking into account climate changes when refurbishing or purchasing new assets.
The limitations to broadening adaptation beyond the current approach of mainly dealing with current risks were stated as two-fold. On the one hand, significant uncertainty surrounding future potential damages and in particular, a lack of high-resolution analysis of vulnerable areas and risk hotspots limits the ability to take action and proactively adapt. The willpower to pursue adaptation would be there, but the knowledge required to make decisions is currently still in development. The other issue was one of funding for adaptation – regardless of the desire of stakeholders to undertake more ambitious adaptation, which may be cost saving in the long term given potential damages over time, the limited amount of funding provided in government budgets was seen as the main roadblock.
The breakout group focused on supply chains discussed how climate risk management and proactive adaptation planning could be integrated in existing management strategies, for instance in selecting suppliers and substituting components. In terms of diversifying supply chains, the group highlighted that the degree of optimal diversification is strongly context- and component-dependent. The group then covered demand side risks downstream the supply chain, discussing the diversification of customer markets and changing consumer behavior in light of a changing climate. Another major point of discussion among the participants was transformational adaptation. Here, a major barrier involves the climate risk identification at the company level, especially because it is not clear how to incorporate climate data into conventional investment decision-making.
Another issue revolves around how to navigate the uncertainty associated with transformational adaptation options. For proactive, transformational adaptation, companies need to know the likely outcome of the options implemented under different scenarios. The group concluded that transformational adaption is easier to plan and implement for larger companies endowed with more resources and that regulatory changes, such as ISO certification requirements, could trigger a change where companies start to consider proactive and transformational adaptation options.
Overall, the workshop demonstrated the applicability and relevance of the two Austrian-focused case studies at a broader EU level, echoing recent policy actions such as the European Critical Raw Materials Act and the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T)policy which emphasize the importance of supply chains and transport infrastructure. The workshop highlighted the relevant links between the two cases and the importance of thinking of adaptation strategy and decisions in a broad manner when considering aspects of transportation and supply chain resilience.