Institutional Responses to Climate Change: the Case of the Alaska Transportation System

Institutions managing the Alaska road,rail, airport, and marine highwaytransportation system and the pipelinecorridor are evaluated for reactions toevidence of climate change. Long-termclimate warming is not a formal criterionin the decisional process of the stateDepartment of Transportation and PublicFacilities for road and airport projects,which have a short (15–25 year) life span,but is taken into account for bridgeconstruction (50–75 year life). Short- tomid-term climate effects are considered inareas with discontinuous permafrost andaffect routing, roadbed construction, andmaintenance decisions. National standardsare amended with Alaska-specific practicesfor unique cold-weather conditions.The Federal/State Joint Pipeline Office(JPO), responsible for monitoring ofpipeline safety under the federal lease andstate grant, in 2001 developed additionalstipulations to mitigate permafrost thawingand slope instability, including a `watchlist' of 200 wobbling VSMs on theTrans-Alaska Pipeline. This action appearsmore responsive to climate change effectsthan that of any other arctic institutionstudied. It can be attributed to thespecific authority of the JPO to monitorgeotechnical conditions at present and inthe future.In general, agencies tended to adoptincremental responses to evidence ofclimate change.