Jonas Johansson
Universitetslektor
National-Level Analysis of the Impact of Climate Change on Local Scour under Bridge Piers in Sweden
Författare
Summary, in English
Scour is an important cause of bridge failures. This article investigates the impact of climate change on bridge-pier scour in all 246 Swedish catchment areas. Although a few previous studies assessed the impact of climate change on bridge-pier scour in other countries, none of those studies identified the locations within a certain country where climate change is projected to have the highest impacts on bridge scour. A novel national-level method, based on possibility theory, is proposed herein for addressing this gap. The proposed method provides answers to the following questions: For which catchment areas is the projected increase in pier-scour depth highest or lowest? What is the percentage of catchment areas where climate change is projected to have either a positive or negative impact on scour risk in all scenarios? Which climate change scenarios cause the highest or lowest increase in equilibrium scour depth? Although these questions are addressed particularly for Sweden, the proposed method is generally applicable for any other location. The catchment area Riebnesströmmen (located in the northernmost county in Sweden) was identified to have the highest increase in the equilibrium scour depth in all considered reference periods (up to ∼25% increase), whereas the catchment area with the lowest increase varied depending on the considered reference period. The answers to the second question depended on the reference period and ranged from ∼5% to ∼10% and ∼8% to ∼14% for positive and negative impacts on scour risk, respectively. Interestingly, for the third question, it was found that higher-emission scenarios are not always more critical than lower-emission ones. These findings demonstrate the importance of performing national-level analyses of climate change impacts on infrastructure considering the different scenarios. The proposed method enables an efficient allocation of resources for adapting bridges to the increased scour risk due to climate change. Additionally, it can serve as a useful tool for quickly estimating the impact of climate change on bridge-pier scour for a certain location.
Avdelning/ar
- Avdelningen för Konstruktionsteknik
- Avdelningen för Riskhantering och Samhällssäkerhet
Publiceringsår
2023
Språk
Engelska
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volym
29
Issue
2
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
Ämne
- Climate Research
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 1076-0342