Resilience of Geo-Infrastructure to Coastal Effects of Climate Change

The adverse effects of climate change have escalated since the beginning of the 1900s. Throughout this century, sea level is going to rise globally; thus, the current urban areas and, along the same lines, infrastructure such as roads, bridges, culverts, embankments, etc. are going to be affected by the sea level rise (SLR). Hampton Roads, Virginia, is one of the most vulnerable coastal regions to climate change in the US due to the negative effects of both SLR and land subsidence triggered by groundwater withdrawal. Geologically, the region mostly consists of sandy soils; thus, the resilience of the existing infrastructure in the region may be affected by capillary rise, salinity, groundwater shoaling, inundation, and flooding due to both extreme precipitation events and SLR. The definition of the resilience of an infrastructure is defined as the bounce-back ability of the structure after an extreme event like sea level rise, earthquakes, extreme precipitation events, etc. From this perspective, this research aims to identify the correlation between the SLR and groundwater, the possibility of capillary rise due to the SLR, geotechnical problems triggered by saltwater intrusion, and the problems caused by the groundwater changes in terms of the resilience concept.