Mountainous areas are complex systems according to their climatic, topographic,hydrological and geological conditions. The road has conquered these regions butremains in a precarious state due to the numerous and diverse risks that threat it.The equilibrium between road safety and natural hazards, which have been foundoften with difficulty, must be reconsidered according to the new boundary conditionsresulting from the climate change. The paper presents the danger to transpose in asimplistic way global climatic scenarios to strong relief regions. Particularly it insistson the subtlety of the relationship temperature – snow – frost. The communication willindicate to the road engineer some tracks in order he can adapt himself to a broaderway of thinking, more open to other disciplines concerning the territory; also in orderhe can adapt his works to these new conditions, even with their large presentuncertainties. In mountainous regions, the origin of problems is often rather far fromthe road itself. The engineer must no more consider the road as a linearinfrastructure but has to integrate it in a large 3D territorial context, which is source ofits vulnerability. This principle is already available today. It will be decisive tomorrow.
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