Physics-Based Assessment of Climate Change Impact on Long-Term Regional Bridge Scour Risk Using Hydrologic Modeling: Application to Lehigh River Watershed

摘要

Climate change poses a substantial threat to civil infrastructure systems. This paper proposes a systematic approach to evaluate the climate change impact on the risk of bridge scour. The proposed approach pivots on global climate models and their downscaled simulation data for future climate prediction. For scour hazard analysis, the climate simulation data are converted to flow discharge data using hydrologic modeling. Because future climates involve considerable uncertainties, different climate futures and global climate models are considered. In addition, long-term regional analyses are adopted to reduce these uncertainties. The proposed approach is applied to bridges over the Lehigh River in the Lehigh River watershed. With data from various public databases, the long-term regional risk of bridge scour is assessed using various global climate models under three climate change scenarios. The impact of climate change on bridge scour risk is quantified in monetary terms. The proposed approach and the obtained results provide an important basis for the planning of climate adaptation actions for river bridges.