Influence of global warming on coastal infrastructural instability

Abstract

The increasing infrastructure instability is an important issue in relation to the influences of global climate change in urban areas. A serious issue pertaining to this is the dual nature of damage triggered by events combined with climate change and natural hazards. For example, catastrophic damage could result from the combination of global warming with a great earthquake, which is a worst-case scenario. Although this worst-case scenario has rarely occurred and presents a low probability of occurrence, countermeasures must be prepared in advance based on an appropriate response and adaptation strategies. After an overview of possible infrastructural instabilities caused by global warming, methodologies are proposed placing emphasis on the increasing probability of infrastructural instability triggered by natural hazards resulting from groundwater-level (GWL) variations. These effects are expected to be particularly serious in coastal regions because of the influence of the rising sea level resulting from global warming. The influence of sea-level rises (SLR) will become apparent along with land subsidence because groundwater abstraction will become severe in coastal regions. Additionally, the probability of earthquake liquefaction increases if GWL rises in accompaniment with SLR. Using case histories, we examined the possible occurrence of these natural hazards as a result of global warming. Finally, possible countermeasures and adaptation strategies for reducing and mitigating infrastructure damage accelerated by global warming are described for each case in specific regions. In particular, special attention should be paid to adaptation strategies in coastal lowlands, which particularly suffer from the effects of land subsidence.

Comparative Influences of Precipitation and River Stage on Groundwater Levels in Near-River Areas

“…It is challenging to predict and estimate GWL and its variations, which are strongly related to meteorological characteristics [1]. In the present study, components that could potentially affect GWL were analyzed with a focus on precipitation and river stage.…”

“…These design components are strongly affected by the stress state within soil, which varies with groundwater level (GWL), resulting in changes in soil effective stress and pore water pressure [1]. Although there are no apparent indications of failure or collapse conditions, changes in GWL can cause a considerable amount of ground subsidence and instant instability problems, all of which are related to the functionality and performance of target structures [2,3].…”

Global CO2 Emission-Related Geotechnical Engineering Hazards and the Mission for Sustainable Geotechnical Engineering

“…Two major climatic issues are associated with global warming, which is accelerated by additional GHGs (Figure 4): (1) Extreme precipitation and (2) sea level rise [17,24]. [1,12,13,17,.…”

Effects of climate change on coastal disasters: new methodologies and recent results

“…Then, the groundwater level rise in coastal zone grounds accompanying sea level rise or climate change was analyzed using the 2-D unconfined groundwater flow analysis method with FEM. The effect of climate change was evaluated (Murakami et al 2005;Yasuhara et al 2007). The change of liquefaction risk before and after sea level rise and climate change was computed using this procedure.…”