Climate-resilient transportation infrastructure in coastal cities

Climate change, sea-level rise, and associated increases in climate-related risks pose significant threats to transportation infrastructure in coastal cities. To improve resilience of the transportation infrastructure it is necessary to understand projected future climate extremes, inherent system characteristics, and relationships to local and regional socio-economic and socio-political systems. We provide an overview of the theoretical and practical dimensions of the design of climate-resilient transportation systems and relevant dimensions for infrastructure adaptation and planning, including valuation and assessment of equity. Highlighting existing gaps in literature, we note further research is needed to better relate natural hazard exposure to physical and operational consequences (e.g., disruption durations, asset-level damages, interdependencies) and improved methods for assessing the adaptive capacity of organizations managing transportation infrastructure systems. Climate-resilient transportation infrastructure systems will require paradigms shifts in infrastructure engineering, planning, and design. We also highlight the need for new frameworks for evaluating benefits in the financing of adaptation projects to improve resilience.