Flooded electricity substations and railways are two of the risks major infrastructure organisations have identified in a series of reports assessing how the UK’s roads, railways and energy supply networks will be able to cope with the effects of a changing climate.

Submissions by National Grid – for gas and electricity – the Environment Agency, Trinity Lighthouse Authority, the Highways Agency, Network Rail and Natural England were published by Defra today so the department could assess preparations for a world that could be two degrees warmer by 2050.

Network Rail, which has previously cautioned that landslides might disrupt its operations, reiterated that prediction, adding that the risk of buckling tracks and persistent flooding are also growing.

Sea levels at Dawlish in Devon, where the rails run alongside the sea, have risen 30cm since 1840, it says, and are likely to swell to 70cm by 2050 and 1.45m by 2100. This increases the risk of waves breaking over the line by 50 per cent by 2020 and three times the current figure by 2080.

It has already invested £8.5m in the past 10 years in fortifying the sea defences and establishing an early warning system to watch for rockfalls from the cliffs, but more investment […]