Caroline Evans at Cerema in France

Recently, Caroline Evans, Senior Technology Leader at the Australian Road Research Board (ARRB) had the pleasure of being invited to work at Cerema in France on secondment for three weeks.  As a Working Group Leader of a PIARC Technical Committee on Adaptation Strategies and Resilience, Caroline, together with the Working Group Co-leader (Fabien Palhol, Cerema) and Marie Colin, Cerema (pictured below with Caroline) developed a PIARC draft report on Adaptation methodologies and strategies to increase the resilience of roads to climate change – Case Study Approach.  The visit provided a significant opportunity to present a wide range of climate change adaptation and success stories from Australia, New Zealand and other best-practice approaches being conducted world-wide.  This latest report was presented by Caroline and Fabien in Vienna at the latest PIARC Technical Committee meeting, and were praised for their collaborative approach to ‘getting the task done’.

Additionally, as part of the work for the PIARC Technical Committee, Australia forms an international case study example of implementing a PIARC International Climate Change Adaptation Framework for Road Infrastructure, and a related project is currently being conducted under the National Asset Centre of Excellence Program (NACoE).  The findings of this work will be of direct relevance to existing practice in Australia, and assist in providing tools for enhanced understanding of climate change risks, vulnerability, criticality of infrastructure and management strategies for the allocation of budgets towards the most effective solutions. 

During this secondment, Caroline was also able to discuss key areas of sustainability and resilience activities being conducted at ARRB, and presented ARRB’s new vision of connecting knowledge, people and data to the Cerema Board, and other key Directors at Cerema.  Opportunities for future collaboration between ARRB and Cerema were also discussed and are continuing.  Whilst in Paris, Caroline also met with the PIARC office to discuss the progress of this work.

ARRB would like to thank Cerema for this valuable opportunity, and for welcoming Caroline.  It represents an example of the collaborative approach undertaken to not only complete this PIARC report, but also share knowledge between France and Australia.