A major new research programme will examine how extreme weather and climate change could trigger disruption across Scotland’s interconnected infrastructure networks, as concerns grow over the ability of essential services to withstand increasingly severe weather events.
Commissioned by the Climate Ready Infrastructure Scotland Forum (CRIS), the study will investigate how failures affecting railways, roads, electricity supplies, water networks and telecommunications can create cascading impacts across other sectors.
The project brings together some of Scotland’s largest infrastructure owners and operators, including Network Rail, ScotRail, Scottish Water, Openreach, SSEN, Transport Scotland and the Met Office.
It is believed to be among the first studies internationally to be jointly commissioned by multiple infrastructure owners and operators specifically to examine climate-related risks across interconnected networks.
The research will be delivered over 12 months, with a procurement exercise set to begin through Public Contracts Scotland.
Understanding how infrastructure failures spread
While infrastructure operators have increasingly developed their own climate adaptation strategies, the new study will address a less understood challenge: how disruption in one sector can affect the operation and recovery of another.
For the railway, these dependencies are particularly significant.
Rail operations rely on electricity, communications, road access and other infrastructure systems, meaning that disruption outside the railway boundary can affect services even when tracks, signalling and other railway assets remain operational.
An electricity supply failure, for example, can affect signalling and communications systems, while flooding that closes roads may prevent engineers from reaching damaged railway infrastructure.
Equally, railway disruption can affect other sectors by preventing employees, equipment and materials from reaching locations where essential repairs are needed.
These interconnected risks become particularly important during major storms or widespread flooding, when several infrastructure networks may experience problems simultaneously.
The new research aims to identify these vulnerabilities and help organisations understand where coordinated investment and contingency planning could reduce the consequences of future incidents.
First shared register of infrastructure dependencies
A central outcome of the programme will be the creation of Scotland’s first shared register identifying how critical infrastructure systems depend on one another.
The register will map relationships between infrastructure networks and highlight locations or systems where failures could produce particularly severe consequences.
Researchers will also investigate how climate-related disruption might spread through these connections, identifying risks that may be overlooked when individual sectors assess their resilience independently.
The work will then be developed through place-based case studies across Scotland, simulating how different climate hazards could affect communities, businesses and essential services.
This approach is intended to move beyond theoretical assessments and demonstrate how interconnected infrastructure failures could unfold in specific locations.
The findings could help infrastructure owners prioritise investment, improve emergency planning and identify opportunities for joint resilience measures.
Network Rail warns infrastructure was built for a different climate
David Harkin, Network Rail Scotland’s Weather Resilience and Climate Change Adaptation Strategy Manager and Co-Chair of the CRIS Forum, said the industry already has a growing understanding of the climate threats facing individual infrastructure networks.
However, he warned that the consequences of disruption spreading between sectors remain less well understood.
“We have a growing understanding of the climate risks facing individual sectors, including within the railway. What’s much less clear is how disruption can spread between them. A power outage can affect communications, transport disruption can delay recovery efforts, and the impacts can quickly reach far beyond the point where the original damage occurred.
“Much of our infrastructure was built for a climate that no longer exists. That’s why the Climate Ready Infrastructure Scotland Forum was created, and for the first time, organisations that own and operate our critical infrastructure are working together to build a shared understanding of these risks.”
Harkin said the research would underpin future collaborative work to strengthen Scotland’s resilience to climate change.
His comments highlight a challenge facing Britain’s railway: infrastructure designed and constructed decades ago must now operate under environmental conditions that may differ significantly from those anticipated when it was built.
For rail infrastructure managers, this creates difficult decisions about where to prioritise investment in drainage, earthworks, structures, electrical systems and other assets vulnerable to extreme weather.
Understanding dependencies beyond the railway could provide an additional dimension to those investment decisions.
A new approach to climate resilience investment
The Scottish Government is supporting the project alongside the participating infrastructure organisations.
Gillian Martin MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Rural Affairs, said the study would help identify how failures in one sector could affect others and support more effective investment decisions.
“Our changing climate is placing increasing pressure on the infrastructure and services we rely on every day. As extreme weather becomes more frequent and severe, it is vital we understand not only the risks facing individual sectors, but also its knock-on effect.
“We’re committed to strengthening Scotland’s infrastructure in the face of a changing climate and this pioneering project helps demonstrate Scotland’s leadership on climate adaptation and resilience.”
She said developing a shared understanding of risks across transport, energy, water and communications would help ensure investment is targeted towards improvements in resilience across the wider infrastructure system.
This is an important distinction for infrastructure planning.
Investment in an individual railway asset may improve its ability to withstand flooding or severe weather, but the wider service may remain vulnerable if connected electricity, communications or access infrastructure is not similarly protected.
The research could therefore help identify situations where coordinated investment across multiple sectors delivers greater benefits than isolated interventions.
University of Glasgow to coordinate research
The National Centre for Resilience, hosted by the University of Glasgow, will manage the commissioning process and coordinate delivery on behalf of the funding partners.
Professor Fabrice Renaud, Director of the National Centre for Resilience, said the work would provide a better understanding of how climate-related hazards could affect interconnected services.
“As Scotland faces increasing climate-related hazards, we need to better understand how our infrastructure systems are connected and how disruption in one sector could affect others.
“The Climate Risk Interdependencies Commission will look across sectors to identify where these interconnected vulnerabilities and risks lie, and what this could mean for our communities and the provision of essential services we all rely on.”
The project will now be advertised through Public Contracts Scotland, with the successful supplier appointed to undertake the research over the following 12 months.
The study is being funded by a coalition of public bodies and infrastructure organisations, with support from the Scottish Government.
Implications for the rail industry
For Network Rail and the wider rail sector, the research represents an opportunity to strengthen climate adaptation planning by looking beyond the condition and vulnerability of railway assets alone.
Recent severe weather events have demonstrated how flooding, high winds and other environmental hazards can disrupt rail operations, damage infrastructure and create substantial recovery costs.
The industry’s response has increasingly focused on better weather monitoring, improved asset intelligence and targeted resilience investment.
However, the effectiveness of these measures also depends on the resilience of supporting infrastructure, particularly power supplies, communications and access routes.
By examining these dependencies systematically, the Scottish study could provide a framework for more coordinated planning between infrastructure owners.
It may also help identify where emergency response arrangements need to account for simultaneous failures across multiple networks.
For rail contractors, engineering consultancies and technology suppliers, the findings could eventually influence how resilience projects are designed, assessed and prioritised, particularly where solutions need to address risks extending beyond a single infrastructure asset.
The research is still at the commissioning stage, and its recommendations will depend on the evidence gathered during the study.
Nevertheless, the project signals a broader shift in how climate resilience is being considered.
Rather than treating railway, energy, water and communications networks as separate systems, Scotland’s infrastructure operators are seeking to understand how their performance is linked and where collective action could reduce the consequences of future extreme weather.
For a railway increasingly exposed to climate-related disruption, that wider perspective could become an important part of long-term infrastructure planning.
