Adapting to climate change is an important part of the Washington State Department of Transportation’s (WSDOT) mission. We are committed to building and maintaining a resilient transportation system. We incorporate climate change considerations into our planning and project evaluations.

Find our policies and procedures below, as well as links to reports we have authored and additional references.

During Planning

Guidance for considering impacts of climate change in WSDOT plans (pdf 606 kb) – Refer to this document for direction on considering climate change impacts during the transportation planning process.

For Projects

Follow the Guidance for project-level climate change evaluation (pdf 1.6 mb) to address the effects of climate change on your project and document those considerations in the project’s environmental document. For information applicable to your project, refer to the following information sources:

• Locations of climate change threats on the state transportation network according to WSDOT’s 2011 Statewide Climate Vulnerability Assessment is available in two locations:
  • WSDOT staff can access the layer through the internal GIS workbench in the Environmental section, under Climate.
  • Analysts outside WSDOT can find this layer in the Community planning portal.
• The University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group develops state-specific anticipated climate change information. See their Climate Impacts in brief web page for a summary of anticipated climate changes in the Washington.

Evaluating greenhouse gases

Information on completing project level greenhouse gas evaluations is available on our Air quality, greenhouse gas, and energy web page.

Hydraulics

For information on addressing climate resilience in hydraulics work, contact the WSDOT headquarters Hydraulics Section.