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COVER STORY 12 airportbusiness June/July 2015 disaster could be a hurricane, a tornado, a flood or even a winter storm.) • What can be done now to minimize damage from specific types of natural disasters or other emergencies? "It's really about safety—the safety of employ- ees and people accessing the facilities," she says. "But it's also about the structural integrity of the facility, and making sure runways, terminals, parking garages, and anything that makes an airport work is back up and functioning as quickly as possible. If they are not functioning for pro- longed periods of time it has major implications on the airport's ability to do its job, which is to get people from place to place." PLAN FOR CLIMATE CHANGE The FAA has made sustainability strategies a core objective in airport planning since 2010. Boston Logan was one of 44 airports of various types, sizes, geographic distribution and climatological changes to receive grants from the FAA to draft sustainability plans. However, it is among the first to throw resiliency planning into the mix. It's one of many firsts for the seaside airport. "Massport has been on the cutting edge of sustainability for years," says Carol Lurie, prin- cipal at VHB and chair of Airports Consultants Council. "They developed sustainable design guidelines, they did the first LEED terminal at Terminal A [both projects VHB worked on], and Massport integrated resiliency planning into its sustainability plan." Now they've taken their planning a step farther with a climate adaptation plan. "We were happy to see that Massport increas- ingly has a focus on resiliency," says Mattison. "Resiliency, the ability to maintain or quickly restore operations under extreme conditions, is an important aspect of sustainability. In an area like Massachusetts, where the airport is right on the water, we really need to be thinking about sea level rise, increased precipitation, flooding and increased storms. These are very real risks for Boston and the facilities Massport manages." With that being said, it's still important for all airports to manage their resiliency, Mattison emphasizes. "Climate risk is not just about prop- erties on the water," she says. "It's about all kinds of impacts, heat waves, tornadoes, you name it. How will they handle those sorts of things?" Mattison outlines several steps to take when addressing risks posed by climate change. 1) Understand what the risks are. Unless you know what the dangers are, you can't plan strategies for dealing with them. 2) Engage in planning to deal with those risks. Part of Massport's planning included creating a task force of partnering agencies; sitting on committees at federal, state and local levels; and preparing for potential threats with key decision makers. 3) Engage the stakeholders. Make them aware of the risks and the plans that are being developed. "You can have the best plans in the world but if nobody knows about them, and they don't know what to do when something happens, then a big piece is missing," she says. 4) Implement the plan and be ready. Make the airport climate resilient. GRAY AND GREEN GO TOGETHER The FAA purposely gave airports leeway to paint resiliency plans with a large brush. Current data on climate-related impacts can be used to evaluate the resilience of airport infrastructure, including the ability to recover quickly from severe weather events and maintain operational efficiency. "The FAA provides broad guidance on plan content, but airport sponsors are able to identify their own sustainability priorities. Climate resil- iency is a common priority," says Marcia Adams, a spokesperson for the FAA. Mattison recommends airports consider both gray and green resiliency solutions. The gray piece hardens airport's infrastruc- ture—the bricks and mortar and key components within the facility. "You need to make sure you have electricity to run the facility during a major event, water to operate certain systems, computer and IT technology, and protecting all of that is very important," she says. But airports also should consider green infrastructure, according to Mattison. "How do we use nature as an ally to achieve certain things?" she asks. Some examples include using natural resources as a buffer. When an airport is on the water, it's important to think about open space and impervious surfaces that can soak up water. "Wetlands are one way to do this; they can guard against flooding," she says. "It's not just about how can we build stuff to keep water out—because in the end Mother Nature will win. The idea is how do we use nature to protect our- The main purpose of the Consolidated Rental Car facility, known as the "ConRAC", is to consolidate airport-related rental operations and facilities into one integrated facility and to reduce the number of shuttle buses on airport roadways.