Understanding climate change risk and impacts to the railway

Our Integrated Climate Change Risk Assessment (XLSX) looks at how weather impacts our assets. It also assesses how the risk may change in the future due to the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather and climate change.

This information helps to support understanding of how assets might function under a changing climate and the severity of the risk facing the railway. An overview of the risks and the methodology for undertaking this work can be found on our Adaptation Report.

If you are interested in exploring historic weather-related incidents, take a look at our weather related performance impacts data.

Weather and Climate Impact Assessment

If you need to carry out a  Weather and Climate Impact Assessment under the NR/L2/ENV/015 Sustainability Minimum Requirements for Projects – Design and Construction standard, our Weather and climate impact assessment guidance can help answer the question “how can weather and climate affect what I am doing?”. You can find the Weather and Climate Impact Assessment on the Guidance notes page.

The guidance provides a methodology for assessing the risks/impacts and for developing options that are resilient to weather and climate change impacts. It is linked with our asset design process but the basic methodology in the first few steps can be applied to any activity, project or strategy.

The impact assessment guidance is complemented by guidance on the use of climate change projections which includes the data needed to complete the assessment. You can find the Climate Change Projections guidance note on the Guidance notes page.

Understanding long term risk to the railway

We are developing our understanding of the long-term risk to the railway through our Adaptation Pathways programme. We plan to publish our strategies in March 2029.

For more detail on what we are doing, see our Delivering Climate Adaptation and Adaptation Planning pages.  If you would like to participate in the development of our adaptation pathways work, please get in touch with details of the area you are interested in and we will connect you with the relevant Regional WRCCA Lead.

Can’t access the link to a Network Rail standard?

If you’re an external contractor, please use the supplier portal to access Network Rail Standards. If you do not have an account you can request this using our Network Rail Standards Account Request form.