The stability of modern societies depends on resilient critical infrastructure—from bridges and hospitals to the power grids that keep cities running. Climate change is amplifying extreme weather hazards, exposing long-lived assets to stresses for which they were never designed. Heat waves, flooding, and windstorms increasingly undermine safety and reliability, while the risks of compound events—such as high winds combined with ice loads on power lines—remain poorly understood.

Traditional engineering and planning methods often rely on historical climate records, which are no longer reliable guides for the future. Current practice faces a major gap: the lack of systematic, asset-specific tools that integrate cutting-edge climate science with structural and operational assessments. This makes it difficult for decision-makers to plan proactive adaptation strategies.

The EU-funded RISKADAPT project addresses this need by developing PRISKADAPT, an open, user-friendly platform that translates advanced climate projections into actionable insights at the level of individual infrastructure assets. The platform has been tested in four pilot cases in Europe and Asia. Here we have a special attention to Nordic energy grids threatened by atmospheric icing.

What was done?

The project’s central achievement is the creation of a scientifically rigorous methodology to downscale global and regional climate projections into asset-level risk assessments. This methodological chain integrates:

  • Open climate datasets from Copernicus, especially the ERA5 reanalysis, providing consistent baseline.
  • Advanced statistical methods, such as Generalised Extreme Value analysis with Bayesian uncertainty quantification, to estimate return levels of rare events.
  • High-resolution climate modelling, including convection-permitting simulations (HCLIM at 3 km), to capture local meteorological phenomena relevant for hazards like icing.
  • Structural modelling and fragility analysis, enabling stress tests on real infrastructure.

These methods were validated in four pilots:

  1. A major bridge in Greece under flood stress.
  2. A Finnish 110kV transmission line threatened by ice and wind (detailed below).
  3. A tall hospital in Trieste, Italy, exposed to Bora winds.
  4. High-rise buildings in Hong Kong, focusing on glass façade safety in typhoons.

Pilot 2: Nordic Energy Grids and Icing Risk

In Finland, RISKADAPT applied the HCLIM model in combination with the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s ISO 12494-based ice accretion model. Simulations were run under the high-emissions RCP8.5 pathway for mid-century (2040–2060) and end-century (2080–2100), with boundary conditions from two distinct global models (EC-EARTH and GFDL-CM3).

Key findings reveal a general decrease in average icing burden across most of Fennoscandia due to warming. However, extreme events remain a persistent threat, with maximum ice loads projected to stay high, especially in northern and elevated regions. For instance, in eastern Finland (Kontiolahti), icing episodes become shorter and thinner, but in Utsjoki in Northern Lapland, maximum ice thickness remains nearly unchanged. These insights warn against complacency: average reductions do not eliminate risk of catastrophic outages.

This probabilistic, high-resolution assessment represents a significant innovation compared with earlier low-resolution studies. When embedded in PRISKADAPT, results became directly usable by operators. Pilot workshops confirmed the tool’s usability for risk visualization, scenario exploration, and prioritization of adaptation measures.

Together, the pilots demonstrate that RISKADAPT enables asset owners to test “what-if” scenarios, evaluate design standards under future hazards, and weigh costs and benefits of adaptation strategies.

Conclusions & Next steps

The RISKADAPT project shows how advanced climate modelling, integrated into a practical decision-support platform, can transform infrastructure planning. Its findings provide a robust scientific basis for policy, engineering, and investment decisions. For Nordic grids, the results highlight both opportunities (reduced average icing) and dangers (continued severe events), underlining the importance of proactive adaptation over reactive recovery.

The expected impact is multifold: more climate-resilient infrastructure, updated engineering standards reflecting future risks, and stronger evidence bases for EU climate adaptation policies. Societally, the project supports energy security, public safety, and economic stability.

Future work will refine PRISKADAPT using stakeholder feedback, expand climate scenarios beyond RCP8.5, and apply the validated methodology to additional hazards and assets. By building a standardized yet flexible framework, RISKADAPT paves the way for embedding climate resilience in infrastructure management across Europe.