Towards new European snow load map: Support to policies and standards for sustainable construction

The Mandate M/515 of the European Commission to CEN requested the assessment of the climate change implications for the Eurocodes, the European standards for structural design. The European Commission Mandate M/526 requested the European Standards Organisations (ESOs) to contribute to building and maintaining a more climate resilient infrastructure throughout the EU in the three priority sectors: transport infrastructure, energy infrastructure, and buildings/construction. To proceed with the envisaged adaptation of the European standards to the implications of climate change, the expected changes in the climatic loading shall be assessed in terms of the Eurocodes concept for the characteristic values of the variable climatic actions. The present report justifies the need of a European research project to develop an advanced procedure for deriving snow load on structures, taking into account climate change projections, and to set up a new European snow load map based on this procedure.