The National Indian Justice Center (NIJC) implements the Assessing Climate Change Induced Vulnerabilities in Tribal Transportation Systems in California Project to address California Tribes’ climate change-related vulnerabilities in their transportation systems.
Climate change poses even more significant long-term transportation challenges to tribes. According to California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment, California tribes may contend with new amplified transportation system vulnerabilities from increased temperatures and precipitation, sea-level rise, severe storms, storm surge and coastal erosion, wildfires, and drought. For example, for tribes along the coast, roadways may erode into the sea. Severe heat may cause roads to buckle, causing tribes to repair and/or maintain them more frequently.
Therefore, the training's goal is to increase tribal capacity to conduct climate adaptation planning for tribal transportation systems in coordination with their tribal long-range transportation planning, tribal transportation safety improvement planning, and active transportation planning and those of surrounding jurisdictions.