Climate-Resilient Infrastructure: Building the Future to Last

The strains that climate change places on already aging infrastructure are becoming increasingly acute. Examples exist across the world of infrastructure at risk of costly obsolescence or catastrophic failure as a result of growing climate impacts like extreme precipitation, sea level rise, and worsening heat waves: from bridges and roads, to electricity grids, to dams, water conveyance, and sea walls. Making sure these high-investment, long-lived, and societally critical systems, which form the backbone of strong economies and public safety, are built for climate stresses will be vital for ensuring the resilience of communities across the world to a changing climate. We therefore propose a theme focus for the 2019 Climate Solutions Conference on Climate-Resilient Infrastructure. What is the cost of not incorporating climate change into infrastructure planning? What are the challenges to doing so equitably and effectively? What data and technical decision support is needed to produce a climate-smart infrastructure planning process? And what new science needs to be done to ensure the climate-ready, low carbon infrastructure of the future?