Research Article An Investigation of Geography and Climate Induced Distresses Patterns on Airfield Pavements at US Air Force Installations Lauren K. Sahagun, 1 Moses Karakouzian, 2 Alexander Paz, 2 and Hanns de la Fuente-Mella 3 1 United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, CO, USA 2 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 4505 S Maryland Parkway, P.O. Box 454015, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA 3 Facultad de Ciencias Econ´ omicas y Administrativas, Pontifcia Universidad Cat´ olica de Valpara´ ıso, Avenida Brasil 2830, 2340031 Valpara´ ıso, Chile Correspondence should be addressed to Alexander Paz; apaz@unlv.edu Received 10 February 2017; Revised 28 March 2017; Accepted 11 April 2017; Published 14 May 2017 Academic Editor: Francesco Marotti de Sciarra Copyright © 2017 Lauren K. Sahagun et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Tis study investigated climate induced distresses patterns on airfeld pavements at US Air Force installations. A literature review and surveys of Pavement Condition Index indicated that the predominant factor contributing to the development of pavement distress was climate. Results suggested that, within each type of pavement distress, a geographic pattern exists which is strongly correlated to conventional US climate zones. Te US Air Force Roll-Up Database, housing over 50,000 records of pavement distress data, was distilled using a process designed to combine similar distresses while accounting for age and size of samples. Te process reduced the data to a format that could be used to perform krig analysis and to develop pavement behavior models for runways built with asphalt cement (AC) and Portland cement concrete (PCC). Regression and krig analyses were conducted for each distress type to understand distress behavior among climate zones. Combined regression and krig analyses provided insight into the overall pavement behavior for AC and PCC runways and illustrated which climate zone was more susceptible to specifc pavement distresses. Distress behavior tends to be more severe in the eastern US for AC and in the western US for PCC runway pavements, respectively. 1. Introduction Te United States Air Force (USAF) contains 1.6 billion square feet of concrete and asphalt pavement in its property inventory across 166 installations worldwide. A part of the inventory, airfeld pavements alone have a plant replacement value of more than $27 billion and require millions of dollars in annual maintenance. Te Budget Control Act, enacted by the United States Congress in 2011, requires the Department of Defense (DoD) to reduce its expenditures by approximately $487 billion over the next 10 years. Tis budget cut has forced Air Force engineers and asset managers, at all administrative levels, to reconsider their strategic approach to facility and infrastructure asset management [1]. Te Air Force Civil Engineer Center (AFCEC) is respon- sible for strategic and long-term pavement management at the combined, joint, major command and installation levels [2, 3]. To manage the Air Force pavement inventory, AFCEC developed the Air Force Pavement Evaluation Program (AFPEP) to determine current pavement conditions; this program strategically allocates restoration and moderniza- tion funds to address future pavement and mission needs [4]. To determine each installation’s pavement condition, the Pavement Evaluation Program obtains, compiles, and reports pavement strength, conditions, and performance by means of a rotation of pavement inspections, evaluations, and tests. As a result, engineers and asset managers are able to (1) deter- mine the operational conditions of the pavement; (2) develop Hindawi Mathematical Problems in Engineering Volume 2017, Article ID 8721940, 10 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/8721940