Strategies and tools for resilience of buried infrastructure to meteorological shocks
Buried infrastructure, like cables and pipes, are vulnerable to meteorological shocks or extreme weather events, such as floods and droughts.
Such events can lead to:
- soil movement
- thermal contraction and expansion
- sinkholes
- various other problems
Despite the urgency to be prepared for these impacts, our understanding of what the UK’s buried infrastructure can cope with remains poor.
This is because existing risk assessment tools do not comprehensively consider impacts from these extreme weather events.
The framework will be applied to understand the potential impacts of extreme weather events, or ‘shocks’, and climate change on these infrastructures.
This will lead to fewer service disruptions, potential cost savings, and increased resilience of infrastructure systems in the face of meteorological shocks and climate change.
Led by Dr Xilin Xia.
