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Keeping infrastructure reliable under climate uncertainty

Nature Climate Change volume 10, pages 488–490 (2020)Cite this article

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Characterizing infrastructure vulnerability to climate change is essential given the long asset lives, criticality of services delivered and high costs of upgrading and maintaining these systems. Reconciling uncertainty from past infrastructure design decisions with future uncertainty of climate change will help prioritize limited resources to high risk assets.

Every day, engineers, planners and stakeholders make choices for infrastructure that directly involve environmental variables. They size pumps and stormwater drainage infrastructure based on the intensity of precipitation and corresponding water flows, or risk allowing roads and neighbourhoods to flood1,2. They choose power line materials based on peak expected summertime temperatures to ensure that heat generated by the lines can sufficiently dissipate away3. Bridge engineers design foundations to maintain integrity under severe water flows. Many thermoelectric power facilities are sensitive to influent water temperatures4,5; a slight temperature increase could result in efficiency losses that make operation uneconomical. Separating design and management of infrastructure from the environment in policy and decision-making is impossible6.

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Fig. 1: Infrastructure decision-making domains defined by past and future climate uncertainty.

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Acknowledgements

This commentary reflects many years of knowledge building supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation (grant nos. SRN 1444755, HDBE 1635490, S&CC 1831475, CMMI 1635638/1635686 and GCR 1934933).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Mikhail V. Chester

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    B. Shane Underwood

  3. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Constantine Samaras

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  1. Mikhail V. Chester
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  2. B. Shane Underwood
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  3. Constantine Samaras
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Correspondence to Mikhail V. Chester.

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Chester, M., Underwood, B.S. & Samaras, C. Keeping infrastructure reliable under climate uncertainty. Nat. Clim. Chang. 10, 488–490 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0741-0

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