Beyond Words

• Date: 01 April 2019

4-2019 NEWS & ANALYSIS 49 ELR 10307

BEYOND WORDS

Each month, ELR publishes a graphic that depicts an environmental law or policy theme or topic. Please send suggested

submissions to austin@eli.org.

The Depart ment of Defense ( DoD) has si gnif‌icant expe rience in planni ng for and managin g risk and uncert ainty. The effe cts of cli-

mate and extrem e weather represe nt additional r isks to incorpor ate into the Dep artment ’s various planning a nd risk manageme nt

processes. To identif y DoD install ations with vul nerabilitie s to climate- related impac ts, a preliminar y Screening L evel Vulnerabil-

ity Assessm ent Survey ( SLVAS) of DoD sites worldw ide was conduct ed in 2015. The SLVAS responses (shown for t he United Stat es;

orange dots ) yielded a wide ra nge of qualitat ive information. T he highest numbe r of reported e ffects resu lted from drought ( 782),

followed closely by wi nd (763) and non-st orm surge relate d f‌looding (706) . About 10% o f sites indicate d being affec ted by extreme

temperature s (351), while f‌looding d ue to storm surge ( 225) and wildf‌i re (210) affecte d about 6% of the si tes report ing. The survey

responses provid e a preliminary q ualitative pic ture of DoD asset s currently af fected by severe weat her events as well as an i ndication

of assets that m ay be affected by se a level rise in the fu ture. Source : adapted from Dep artment of De fense 2018 (http ://ww w. oea.gov/

resource/2018-climate-related-risk-dod-infrastructure-initial-vulnerability-assessment-survey-slvas).

Source: U.S. G  C R  P, F  N C A , Vol. II, g. 1.9 (2018), available at

https://www.globalc hange.gov/nca4).

Copyright © 2019 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.