Risk-based assessment of climate change adaptation strategies for infrastructure

Abstract

There is much effort devoted to assessing the impact of climate change, and in mitigating CO2 emissions. Yet similar efforts are needed for assessing the effectiveness of adaptation strategies for buildings, bridges, wharves and other infrastructure to ameliorate the impact of climate change. There is significant uncertainty with future CO2 emissions and their effect on climate variability, as well as the impact this will have on the performance and reliability of existing and new infrastructure over the next 100 years. Clearly, probabilistic and structural reliability approaches are needed.
The focus of the mini-symposium is the probabilistic and reliability assessment of the effectiveness of climate change adaptation strategies for infrastructure. Adaptation strategies aimed at ameliorating the impact of climate change might include sea level rise, extreme wind events (cyclones/hurricanes), deterioration, flooding, wildfires, and other extreme event natural hazards. Risk-based assessments will require temporal and spatial system modelling, as well as assessing risk acceptability and cost-effectiveness of adaptation strategies.

Organizers

Mark G. Stewart, The University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, (Mark.Stewart@newcastle.edu.au)
Yue Li, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Michigan, US
Dimitri Val, School of the Built Environment Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland