Design Guide and Standards for Infrastructure Resilience

Extreme weather events such as hurricanes, droughts, heat waves, convective storms, floods, and wildfires have significant adverse impacts. Sea levels, temperatures, and precipitation patterns are expected to increase in frequency and severity and stress transportation systems, increasing the risk of disruptions, damage, and casualties. Infrastructure planning and design should account for these conditions to minimize impacts, yet this is not adequately addressed in current design standards and guidance. Translating climate projections and extreme weather data into information usable for project-level design and the development of design specifications is complex. Current design criteria for building and retrofitting transportation infrastructure are generally developed with an implicit assumption that the climate conditions will remain static over the design life. State and federal guidelines and requirements for producing transportation project designs for more resilient transportation assets have increased in recent years. Recognizing the benefits of incorporating resilience into all facets of the project life cycle, many transportation agencies are beginning to conduct engineering-informed adaptation studies and develop ways to formally integrate resilience into the project development process. A number of highly related, recent research projects have been initiated and/or completed by NCHRP and FHWA. Practitioners need additional assistance evaluating and balancing the potential costs and benefits of incorporating recommended guidance and standards that consider resilience to extreme weather and future climatic conditions in their project development processes. The objectives of this project are to (1) briefly summarize how extreme weather events, long-term climate changes, and climate resilience impact transportation project delivery, infrastructure life-cycles, and asset management practices; (2) identify current and projected future climate variables to be considered during the design of transportation projects to increase resilience; (3) develop recommendations for updating design processes that include consideration of extreme weather events and increase resilience to climate impacts; and (4) develop a project delivery climate change resilience design guide.

• Record URL:
  http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=4971

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $734960
• Contract Numbers:

  Project 15-80

• Sponsor Organizations:

  National Cooperative Highway Research Program

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001

  American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO)

  444 North Capitol Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Crichton-Sumners, Camille

• Performing Organizations:

  ICF Incorporated LLC

  9300 Lee Highway
  Fairfax, VA  United States  22031
• Principal Investigators:

  Dix, Brenda

• Start Date: 20210617
• Expected Completion Date: 20240817
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Benefit cost analysis; Climate change; Design; Disaster resilience; Infrastructure; Project management; State departments of transportation; Transportation engineering; Weather
• Subject Areas: Design; Environment; Highways; Security and Emergencies;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01739576
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project 15-80
• Files: TRB, RIP
• Created Date: May 19 2020 5:04PM