Assessing Risk of Climate Change on Existing Canadian Bridge Infrastructure: A Multidisciplinary Approach

Addressing the impact of climate change on transportation infrastructure is one of the global challenges of this century. The impacts of climate change are visible across the globe and have been growing progressively worse over the last 50 years. The climate in North America will continue changing during the twenty-first century; current predictive models indicate that the mean annual temperature will rise by between 1 and 5.5 °C. Annual precipitation is likely to increase by up to 5% in most Canadian regions, while the intensity of daily precipitation and the probability of extreme precipitation intensities may increase across the entire country. Mean annual and extreme wind speeds are expected to increase and the sea level in some areas is likely to rise by up to 0.9 m by the end of the century. These changes create an environment of uncertainty when assessing the risk of climate change on existing bridge structures. In collaboration with the National Research Council, this is ongoing research which requires much effort in assessing the risk and developing a tool for engineers to assess existing bridges. A risk assessment tool is developed to equip practicing engineers and decision-makers with the challenging task of evaluating bridges structurally while considering the impact on socioeconomics. The presented protocol incorporates projected temperature values based on representative concentration model 6.0 (RCP 6.0) as outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The methodology developed evaluates the impact of projected temperature on a given bridge both structurally and socioeconomically. This tool allows decision-makers to evaluate a portfolio of bridges to determine the level of risk and provides input toward prioritization of intervention projects and, therefore, resource allocation. The methodology is a systematic multidisciplinary approach that can be applied to assess existing bridges considering climate change.