Climate Change Influence on Priority Setting for Transportation Infrastructure Assets James H. Lambert, Ph.D., P.E., D.WRE, M.ASCE 1 ; Yao-Jan Wu, Ph.D., M.ASCE 2 ; Haowen You 3 ; Andres Clarens, Ph.D., M.ASCE 4 ; and Brian Smith, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE 5 Abstract: Transportation infrastructure could be vulnerable to local manifestations of global climate change, such as storm frequencies and durations of seasons. To adapt, transportation agencies need methodologies for reprioritizing their assets subject to the new sources of vulner- ability. Prioritizing assets is nontrivial when criteria assessments and owner/operator preferences are considered in conjunction with the possible climate scenarios. Few efforts to date have addressed these scenarios in a priority setting for infrastructure asset management in the literature. This paper extends a scenario-based multicriteria decision framework that can assist decision makers in effectively allocating limited resources to adapt transportation assets to a changing climate. The framework is demonstrated with one of the most susceptible metropolitan transportation systems in the United States, the Hampton Roads region in coastal southeastern Virginia. First, the high-level goals of a long-range transportation plans are used in a traditional multicriteria analysis to generate a baseline prioritization of assets. Next, several scenarios that incorporate and combine a variety of climate conditions are identified. Finally, the scenarios are used to adjust the initial criteria weighting, which results in several reprioritizations of the assets. The results help to identify the most influential scenarios and characterize the sensitivity of the baseline prioritization across multiple scenarios. With these results, additional scientific and investigative efforts can be focused effectively to study and understand the influential scenarios. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)IS.1943-555X.0000094. © 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers. CE Database subject headings: Assets; Transportation management; Planning; Risk management; Uncertainty principles; Decision making; Climate change. Author keywords: Scenario analysis; Asset management; Multicriteria decision analysis; Transportation planning; Risk management; Deep uncertainty; Robust decision making. Introduction The effects of climate change on infrastructure systems could be realized in a variety of ways (Lambert et al. 2011). Climate-related physical-geographic changes, such as sea level rise, reduced snow cover, sea ice, and the increased frequency of extreme-heat days and changes in the hydrologic cycle have been observed globally (Karl et al. 2009). Global temperatures have been projected to rise between 1 and 6°C by 2100. Temperature increases can be associ- ated with changes in seasonal duration and increased frequencies of extreme weather events with associated precipitation, runoff, and storm-surge impacts. Transportation agencies have begun to consider how the im- pacts of climate change will affect their policies and programs for asset management [McFarlane and Walberg 2010; Transportation Research Board (TRB) 2008; Governor’ s Commission on Climate Change (GCCC) 2008]. An increase in temperature extremes would cause damage to pavement and railroad tracks (Karl et al. 2009; Meyer et al. 2010). Storm surge from hurricanes exacerbated by sea-level rise threatens coastal transportation assets. Bridges and tunnels, in particular, would be susceptible to extreme weather events and have the potential to be disruptive for regional transpor- tation. System operations, such as evacuations, traffic management and monitoring, and other activities, could be impacted. Intermodal facilities, such as ports and airports, could be impaired with signifi- cant economic ramifications. These and other potential impacts of climate change on transportation have been enumerated in nu- merous studies, most notably the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCR) report (Karl et al. 2009). If climate change is already underway and additional warming is expected, adaptation to these changes could be beneficial for ensur- ing the performance of particular transportation infrastructure systems into the future. A key challenge for adaptation is the variety of time horizons across the several factors of climate change. Although some regions may be experiencing a marked increase in climate change-related weather events over the past two decades, 1 Associate Director, Center for Risk Management of Engineering Sys- tems; and Research Associate Professor, Dept. of Systems and Information Engineering, Univ. of Virginia, 112 Olsson Hall, Charlottesville, VA 22904 (corresponding author). E-mail: lambert@virginia.edu 2 Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology, 3450 Lindell Blvd., McDonnell Douglas Hall Room 2051, Saint Louis Univ., St. Louis, MO 63103. E-mail: yaojan@slu.edu 3 Graduate Research Associate, Center for Risk Management of Engi- neering Systems, Dept. of Systems and Information Engineering, Univ. of Virginia, 105E Olsson Hall, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904. E-mail: hy9be@virginia.edu 4 Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engine- ering, Univ. of Virginia, Thornton Hall B228, 351 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA 22904-1000. E-mail: aclarens@virginia.edu 5 Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Virginia, Thornton Hall B228, 351 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA 22904-1000. E-mail: briansmith@virginia.edu Note. This manuscript was submitted on August 19, 2011; approved on January 12, 2012; published online on May 29, 2012. Discussion period open until August 1, 2013; separate discussions must be submitted for individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Infrastructure Sys- tems, Vol. 19, No. 1, March 1, 2013. © ASCE, ISSN 1076-0342/2013/1- 36-46/$25.00. 36 / JOURNAL OF INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS © ASCE / MARCH 2013 J. Infrastruct. Syst. 2013.19:36-46. Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by ARIZONA,UNIVERSITY OF on 11/21/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.