Deep Dive: Protecting Critical Infrastructure
Our nation’s roads, buildings, and bridges are being compromised by extreme weather events and sea level rise. Explore how CASC science is improving our understanding of how climate change is impacting critical infrastructure and supporting risk mitigation and adaptation planning.
Climate Change Threatens Our Nation’s Infrastructure
Climate change is threatening the integrity of infrastructure across the Nation. Floods destroy roads and bridges. Sea level rise and associated high-tides and storm surges threaten coastal military installations. Thawing Arctic permafrost destabilizes the ground beneath homes and highways. As communities seek to develop new and reenforce existing infrastructure, considering potential climate impacts can support the longevity of these assets.
Supporting Infrastructure Planning in the Face of Emerging Threats
The Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASCs) work with resource managers and communities to anticipate threats to infrastructure and help them design climate-adaptive strategies for protecting critical structures. Our science improves forecasts of natural hazards like wildfires and avalanches, supporting hazard mitigation and land-use planning in high-risk areas. We study less visible dangers, like the thawing of permanently frozen ground in the Arctic that is jeopardizing roads and buildings on the surface. We help managers of our coastal public lands understand how future sea level rise and flooding from storms could affect their assets and operations. We also work with partners to explore the benefits of natural infrastructure, such as restoring grasslands to be more fire-resistant and stabilizing shorelines to buffer coastal communities from storms.
Forecasting Avalanche Hazards in Southeast Alaska
The City and Borough of Juneau, Alaska has the highest urban avalanche danger in the United States. Driven by complex interactions between weather, snow, and terrain, it is difficult to forecast when and where avalanches will occur. Warming temperatures and increased rain-on-snow events could significantly impact the extent, behavior, and predictability of avalanches.
CASC scientists and partners are collaborating to identify how climate and weather affected past avalanches in southern Alaska, to better forecast future avalanche risk and support long-term infrastructure planning and avalanche mitigation operations. The team is focusing on four sites of critical infrastructure: the Kensington Mine, the Snettisham hydroelectric power plant, Eaglecrest Ski Area, and the neighborhood of Behrends Avenue. The results of this project will improve our understanding of the future of avalanche hazards in Juneau and enable the management community to better plan for these events.
Designing Climate-Resilient Stormwater Management in Northeastern Cities
In the Northeast, current stormwater management infrastructure and strategies are built around historical weather data and not the weather that is expected with climate change, like more frequent extreme rainfall. This matters because stormwater can introduce pollution into streams and cause flooding.
In partnership with city stormwater managers, CASC scientists are combining climate data, stormwater models, and data about urban streams to identify effective adaptation strategies for stormwater management in the region that will also support healthy lakes and streams.
Mapping Future Flood Risk at Coastal Hawaiian Parks and Refuges
In August 2017, Honolulu Harbor saw the highest hourly water level since tide gauge record collection began in 1905, due in part to rising sea levels. The Pearl Harbor National Memorial experienced damage to boat docks due these high-water levels.
As sea levels rise, waves will break closer to shore and run-up will reach farther inland, increasing flood risk. Park and refuge managers in Hawaii and the U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI) need information that can help them protect their assets and operations into the future. To address this need, the CASCs modeled the combined threats of flooding from sea level rise and storms to provide more accurate predictions of future coastal flooding at parks and refuges in Hawaii and the U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands.
Accurate projections of flooding will support the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in developing adaptation plans that can help reduce damage to invaluable resources and critical infrastructure on public lands.
Permafrost Thaw Changes Alaska’s Landscapes
Many of Alaska’s buildings, roads, and bridges are built on permanently frozen soil known as “permafrost”. As the Arctic experiences an extreme rate of warming, permafrost is thawing and transitioning into uneven, marshy “thermokarst”. This causes the soil to become soft and sometimes collapse, threatening the structural integrity of roads, buildings, and bridges built upon the softening soil and contributing to rapid coastal erosion.
CASC scientists are using landscape models to map areas of Alaska’s permafrost that are likely to become thermokarst through 2100. To do this, they are using projections of future climate conditions to identify areas where the ground will no longer completely refreeze during winter, priming the landscape for a transition from permafrost to thermokarst.
These maps will help decision-makers from the State of Alaska Division of Natural Resources, Department of Interior, and private industry identify areas of the state where infrastructure will need to be planned and engineered to withstand these changes in the landscape.
Our nation’s roads, buildings, and bridges are being compromised by extreme weather events and sea level rise. Explore how CASC science is improving our understanding of how climate change is impacting critical infrastructure and supporting risk mitigation and adaptation planning.
Climate Change Threatens Our Nation’s Infrastructure
Climate change is threatening the integrity of infrastructure across the Nation. Floods destroy roads and bridges. Sea level rise and associated high-tides and storm surges threaten coastal military installations. Thawing Arctic permafrost destabilizes the ground beneath homes and highways. As communities seek to develop new and reenforce existing infrastructure, considering potential climate impacts can support the longevity of these assets.
Supporting Infrastructure Planning in the Face of Emerging Threats
The Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASCs) work with resource managers and communities to anticipate threats to infrastructure and help them design climate-adaptive strategies for protecting critical structures. Our science improves forecasts of natural hazards like wildfires and avalanches, supporting hazard mitigation and land-use planning in high-risk areas. We study less visible dangers, like the thawing of permanently frozen ground in the Arctic that is jeopardizing roads and buildings on the surface. We help managers of our coastal public lands understand how future sea level rise and flooding from storms could affect their assets and operations. We also work with partners to explore the benefits of natural infrastructure, such as restoring grasslands to be more fire-resistant and stabilizing shorelines to buffer coastal communities from storms.
Forecasting Avalanche Hazards in Southeast Alaska
The City and Borough of Juneau, Alaska has the highest urban avalanche danger in the United States. Driven by complex interactions between weather, snow, and terrain, it is difficult to forecast when and where avalanches will occur. Warming temperatures and increased rain-on-snow events could significantly impact the extent, behavior, and predictability of avalanches.
CASC scientists and partners are collaborating to identify how climate and weather affected past avalanches in southern Alaska, to better forecast future avalanche risk and support long-term infrastructure planning and avalanche mitigation operations. The team is focusing on four sites of critical infrastructure: the Kensington Mine, the Snettisham hydroelectric power plant, Eaglecrest Ski Area, and the neighborhood of Behrends Avenue. The results of this project will improve our understanding of the future of avalanche hazards in Juneau and enable the management community to better plan for these events.
Designing Climate-Resilient Stormwater Management in Northeastern Cities
In the Northeast, current stormwater management infrastructure and strategies are built around historical weather data and not the weather that is expected with climate change, like more frequent extreme rainfall. This matters because stormwater can introduce pollution into streams and cause flooding.
In partnership with city stormwater managers, CASC scientists are combining climate data, stormwater models, and data about urban streams to identify effective adaptation strategies for stormwater management in the region that will also support healthy lakes and streams.
Mapping Future Flood Risk at Coastal Hawaiian Parks and Refuges
In August 2017, Honolulu Harbor saw the highest hourly water level since tide gauge record collection began in 1905, due in part to rising sea levels. The Pearl Harbor National Memorial experienced damage to boat docks due these high-water levels.
As sea levels rise, waves will break closer to shore and run-up will reach farther inland, increasing flood risk. Park and refuge managers in Hawaii and the U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI) need information that can help them protect their assets and operations into the future. To address this need, the CASCs modeled the combined threats of flooding from sea level rise and storms to provide more accurate predictions of future coastal flooding at parks and refuges in Hawaii and the U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands.
Accurate projections of flooding will support the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in developing adaptation plans that can help reduce damage to invaluable resources and critical infrastructure on public lands.
Permafrost Thaw Changes Alaska’s Landscapes
Many of Alaska’s buildings, roads, and bridges are built on permanently frozen soil known as “permafrost”. As the Arctic experiences an extreme rate of warming, permafrost is thawing and transitioning into uneven, marshy “thermokarst”. This causes the soil to become soft and sometimes collapse, threatening the structural integrity of roads, buildings, and bridges built upon the softening soil and contributing to rapid coastal erosion.
CASC scientists are using landscape models to map areas of Alaska’s permafrost that are likely to become thermokarst through 2100. To do this, they are using projections of future climate conditions to identify areas where the ground will no longer completely refreeze during winter, priming the landscape for a transition from permafrost to thermokarst.
These maps will help decision-makers from the State of Alaska Division of Natural Resources, Department of Interior, and private industry identify areas of the state where infrastructure will need to be planned and engineered to withstand these changes in the landscape.