The IPCC states that climate change unequivocally impacts on various aspects of the natural and built environment, including our vital critical infrastructure systems (transport, energy, water/wastewater and communications). It is thus essential for countries to gain an understanding of critical infrastructure vulnerability to current and future climate-related threats, in order to develop effective climate adaptation strategies. The first requisite step towards implementing these strategies, before any detailed analysis can commence, is high-level vulnerability or risk assessments. The work in this paper is concerned with such high-level assessments, however the framework presented is GIS-based, facilitating modelling of geographical variability in both climate and asset vulnerability within a country. This permits the identification of potential climate change risk hotspots across a range of critical infrastructure sectors. The framework involves a number of distinct steps. Sectoral information matrices are developed to highlight the key relationships between the infrastructure and climate threats. This information is complemented with sectoral maps showing, on an asset-level, the potential geospatial impacts of climate change, facilitating initial quantification of the vulnerable portions of the infrastructure systems. Finally, the approach allows for development of multi-sectoral semi-quantitative risk ranking maps that account for the geographical proximities of various assets from different critical infrastructure sectors which are vulnerable to a specific climate threat. The framework is presented in the paper and applied as a case study in the context of Irish critical infrastructure. The case-study identified for instance, potentially substantial increases in fluvial flooding risk for Irish critical infrastructure, while the multi-sectoral risk ranking maps highlighted a number of Ireland’s urban and rural areas as climate change risk hotspots. These high-level insights are likely to be useful in informing more detailed assessment, and initiating important conversations relating to a region’s critical infrastructure cross-sectoral risk.

IPCC指出，气候变化无疑会影响自然和建筑环境的各个方面，包括我们至关重要的基础设施系统（运输，能源，水/废水和通讯）。因此，各国必须了解对当前和未来与气候有关的威胁的关键基础设施的脆弱性，以便制定有效的气候适应战略。在开始任何详细分析之前，实施这些策略的首要必要步骤是高级漏洞或风险评估。本文的工作与此类高水平评估有关，但是所提供的框架是基于GIS的，有助于对一个国家内气候和资产脆弱性的地理变异性进行建模。这可以确定一系列关键基础设施部门中潜在的气候变化风险热点。该框架涉及许多不同的步骤。开发部门信息矩阵以突出基础设施与气候威胁之间的关键关系。该信息得到部门地图的补充，该部门地图在资产级别显示了气候变化的潜在地理空间影响，从而有助于对基础设施系统中脆弱部分的初步量化。最后，该方法允许开发多部门半定量风险排名图，该图说明了来自不同关键基础设施部门的各种资产的地理邻近性，这些资产易受特定气候威胁的影响。本文介绍了该框架，并将其作为案例研究在爱尔兰关键基础架构中使用。例如，案例研究确定了爱尔兰关键基础设施的河流洪灾风险可能大幅增加，而多部门风险排名图则突出显示了爱尔兰许多城市和农村地区是气候变化风险的热点。这些高层次的见解可能有助于进行更详细的评估，并启动与该地区关键基础设施跨部门风险相关的重要对话。而多部门风险排名图则突出显示了爱尔兰许多城市和农村地区的气候变化风险热点。这些高层次的见解可能有助于进行更详细的评估，并启动与该地区关键基础设施跨部门风险相关的重要对话。而多部门风险排名图则突出显示了爱尔兰许多城市和农村地区的气候变化风险热点。这些高层次的见解可能有助于进行更详细的评估，并启动与该地区关键基础设施跨部门风险相关的重要对话。