Silicon Valley 2.0 Regional Climate Change Adaptation Strategic Plan

In 2013, the County of Santa Clara engaged a consulting team led by AECOM to help develop the County’s Regional Climate Change Adaptation Strategic Plan. While a Principal at Nelson\Nygaard, Patrick Siegman led a team of transportation planners advising on the potential effects of climate change on transportation facilities, and recommending feasible adaptation strategies.

The resulting plan, known as Silicon Valley 2.0, provides a clear strategy to adapt the County to the effects of climate change, ranging from increases in extreme heat events to the rising tide of the San Francisco Bay. To accomplish this, the project team developed and applied sustainability accounting principles, methodologies, and valuations. The plan and its software tools provide a useful and much needed public sector counterpart to models for sustainability accounting standardized by the private sector. The models assist in making long-term developmental, strategic, and operational plans, and in directing funds to implement those plans.

Mr. Siegman and his team’s work on the plan included advising on the potential effects of sea level rise on low-lying rail, road, and port infrastructure along the San Francisco Bay waterfront, and recommending potential adaptation strategies. The team made similar assessments of the sensitivity, vulnerability, and adaptive capacity of each type of transportation infrastructure to other climate change threats, such as storm surge, riverine flooding, extreme heat, and wildfires. To develop locally-appropriate adaptation strategies, we reviewed strategies used successfully in comparable regions, from America’s coastlines to the Netherlands.

For its excellence, the plan was awarded the 2018 Achievement Award in the category of "County Resiliency: Infrastructure, Energy and Sustainability" from the National Association of Counties.

Images courtesy of AECOM and the County of Santa Clara