Roads and associated structures: infrastructure impacts, vulnerabilities and design considerations for future climate change

This paper provides a summary of the findings from the literature scan, directed at identifying engineering literature that relates to road and associated infrastructure vulnerabilities in light of climate change. The scan was carried out over the course of several weeks in late 2007/early 2008. Although many Canadian transportation agencies are thinking about the potential vulnerabilities and associated engineering impacts, very few agencies have completed any formal analysis at this time. A few agencies currently have some on-going activities that are expected to be completed in 2008, but the majority have not started to examine the engineering aspects of how the change will need to be addressed in design, construction and maintenance. Although climate change and it's impact on transportation and specifically roads and associated structures is appearing in various reports and documents across Canada, available detailed information on engineering impacts was limited to nonexistent. This paper includes a brief introduction and background on climate change in general and the related predicted impacts on road infrastructure and associated structures, with primary focus on bridges. These sections are followed by project scope and objectives and methodology of assessment. The summary of findings provides some more specific details and has been prepared using available public agency documents that were located during the aforementioned search. Finally a few closing comments are provided. (author)