A decision model for intergenerational life-cycle risk assessment of civil infrastructure exposed to hurricanes under climate change

Public awareness of civil infrastructure performance has increased considerably in recent years as a result of repeated natural disasters. Risks from natural hazards may increase dramatically in the future, given current patterns of urbanization and population growth in hazard-prone areas. Risk assessments for infrastructure with expected service periods of a century or more are highly uncertain, and there is compelling evidence that climatology will evolve over such intervals. Thus, current natural hazard and risk assessment models, which are based on a presumption of stationarity in hazard occurrence and intensity, may not be adequate to assess the potential risks from hazards occurring in the distant future. This paper addresses two significant intergenerational elements – the potential impact of non-stationarity in hazard due to climate change and intergenerational discounting practices – that are essential to provide an improved decision support framework that accommodates the needs and values of future generations. The framework so developed is tested through two benchmark problems involving buildings exposed to hurricanes. - Highlights: • Difficulties of conventional life-cycle engineering decision-making over multiple generations are clearly elaborated. • Two intergenerational elements are proposed to reflect equitable allocations of risk between generations. • A data-based approach to forecast future hurricanes is provided to bridge the gap between models at large and local scales. • The feasibility and practicability of a refined framework are examined through two lifecycle cost assessment examples. • The two intergenerational elements suggested in this study have a wide range of applicability.