Climate Change Impacts on Transportation Infrastructure

Transportation infrastructure worldwide—encompassing roads, railways, bridges, ports and airfields—was largely designed and operated on the basis of historical climate statistics. Anthropogenic warming, however, is driving more frequent and intense extremes of temperature, precipitation, sea-level rise and storm surge, placing these assets under novel stressors. Increased flood frequency and intensity accelerate pavement degradation, undermine subgrade stability and corrode rail ballast, while prolonged heat waves can soften asphalt, distort rails and impose cooling demands on sensitive signalling equipment. Coastal roads, rail corridors and intermodal terminals are particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise and storm surges. The rising incidence of such hazards not only disrupts operations and safety but also multiplies maintenance requirements and life-cycle costs. As infrastructure lifespans extend into decades or centuries, adaptation measures—ranging from enhanced drainage, climate-resilient materials and protective sea defences to dynamic operational strategies—are essential to safeguard serviceability. Integrating forward-looking hazard assessments, safety factors and flexible design standards will be critical to maintain connectivity, support economic activity and realise low-carbon mobility transitions in a changing climate.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have analysed the global exposure of road and railway infrastructure to changing precipitation extremes. Under a high-emissions warming scenario, nearly half of existing transport assets could experience a 25% reduction in their design return period for extreme rainfall by mid-century, rising to more than two-thirds by late century. This work demonstrates that embedding a climate safety factor of approximately 1.2 into design practices can restore historical risk levels across most regions, enabling quicker adaptation of drainage capacities and embankment slopes without extensive redesign. Such global-scale assessments provide a clear quantitative basis for revising engineering standards and prioritising resilience investments.

Climate Change Impacts on Transportation Infrastructure publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in climate change impacts on transportation infrastructure across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Design return period: The average interval of years within which a specified extreme event (e.g. rainfall) is expected to be equalled or exceeded once.

Exceedance probability: The likelihood that a given threshold (e.g. flood depth) will be surpassed in any one year.

Safety factor: A multiplier applied to design loads or climate projections to ensure continued performance under uncertain future conditions.

Life cycle cost (LCC): The total expenditure on an asset over its entire service life, including construction, operation, maintenance and renewal.

Climate adaptation: Adjustments in design, materials, operations or policies to reduce vulnerability to current and projected climate impacts.

References

1. Global transportation infrastructure exposure to the change of precipitation in a warmer world. Nature Communications (2023).
2. Climate change impacts assessment on railway infrastructure in urban environments. Sustainable Cities and Society (2024).
3. Life cycle cost assessment of railways infrastructure asset under climate change impacts. Transportation Research Part D Transport and Environment (2024).
4. Climate effects on US infrastructure: the economics of adaptation for rail, roads, and coastal development. Climatic Change (2021).