About this Research Topic
Critical infrastructure systems related to water, energy supply, and transportation are the backbone to a nation's security, economy, and culture. Climate change is among the biggest threats that infrastructure systems across the globe are expected to be exposed to in the future. Increasing sea levels, storm surges and heavy downpours are expected to pose an increased risk to ports and coastal infrastructure. More intense and frequent extreme heat events are expected to damage transportation infrastructure such as roads, rail lines, and airport runways. Similarly, flooding caused by heavy downpours, prolonged rains, and rapid melting of snow is expected to impose increased burden on flood protection infrastructure. Increased magnitudes, frequencies, and durations of wind-driven rain events are expected to present an unprecedented threat to the durability of building envelopes, and the predicted increase in global temperature is expected to challenge their energy efficiency with regards to balancing the expected heating and cooling loads.
To build sustainable cities of the future, it is essential that the impacts of past, present, and projected future climates on infrastructure systems are reliably quantified and well understood. The goal of this research topic is to attract studies performed in this direction and to analyse a broad range of infrastructure types such as: buildings, roads, railways, water resource management infrastructure, bridges, etc. in relation to climate related hazards such as: extreme heat, flooding, extreme precipitation, sea-level rise, wind-driven rain, etc. and their combinations. This topic invites studies that:
• Investigate the interactions between infrastructure components and climate systems.
• Provide critical reviews of past studies that have evaluated the impacts of climate on infrastructure systems.
• Provide evidence of historically recorded impacts of climate on infrastructure.
• Provide modelling-based evidence of past, present, and/or projected future impacts of climate on infrastructure.
To build sustainable cities of the future, it is essential that the impacts of past, present, and projected future climates on infrastructure systems are reliably quantified and well understood. The goal of this research topic is to attract studies performed in this direction and to analyse a broad range of infrastructure types such as: buildings, roads, railways, water resource management infrastructure, bridges, etc. in relation to climate related hazards such as: extreme heat, flooding, extreme precipitation, sea-level rise, wind-driven rain, etc. and their combinations. This topic invites studies that:
• Investigate the interactions between infrastructure components and climate systems.
• Provide critical reviews of past studies that have evaluated the impacts of climate on infrastructure systems.
• Provide evidence of historically recorded impacts of climate on infrastructure.
• Provide modelling-based evidence of past, present, and/or projected future impacts of climate on infrastructure.
Keywords: infrastructure, climate change, floods, coastal, building envelopes
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
