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Infrastructure projects such as repositories for nuclear waste or hazardous waste sites impose risks (in the form of potential burdens or losses) over extensive timescales. These risks change dynamically over time and so, potentially, does their management. Societies and key actors go through learning processes and subsequently may be better able to deal with related challenges. However, social scientific research on the acceptance of such projects is mainly concerned with (static) risk perception issues and does not include dynamic aspects. Adaptive capacity, which is part of the concept of vulnerability, therefore represents a promising complementing facet for this line of research. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of perceived adaptive capacity (PAC) for the acceptance of contested long-term infrastructure for the two issues of nuclear and hazardous waste. In an online experimental survey (N = 300) examining either the acceptance of a nuclear waste repository or of a hazardous waste site, we demonstrate that (i) PAC can be separated empirically as a psychological construct from risk and benefit perception, and (ii) PAC explains a significant additional share of variance in the acceptance of both waste types beyond risk and benefit perception. Furthermore, we report what adaptation mechanisms of PAC participants expect to occur in the future. We conclude that such a dynamic perspective yields important insights in understanding individual decision-making regarding long-term infrastructure projects. IntroductionIn the siting of large infrastructure projects such as nuclear power plants, nuclear waste repositories, dams, wind power plants, deep geothermal, or carbon capture and storage (CCS) implementers often face enormous difficulties. Such projects, also referred to as contested infrastructure (Boholm 2004), share some common characteristics: they are often large-scale projects in which burdens and benefits are unequally distributed over time and space, and they include a broad range of actors with differing interests and values. Moreover, these infrastructures often pose risks over very long timescales due to uncertainties in physical processes and knowledge (ignorance). In a nutshell, they 'combine technical factors and social factors in