Climatic influence on geotechnical infrastructure: a review

Geotechnical infrastructure is extensively used for transport and flood defences. Asset values are significant, with failures causing significant disruption alongside potentially significant injury, death and financial consequences. Changing climate alters the environmental load on such infrastructure, and this paper reviews the potential impacts and the current understanding of the changes in geotechnical performance. While it is seen that well-known climate change impacts (such as sea-level rise) affect the geotechnical infrastructure, other factors are also likely to have impact (such as increasing temperature causing soil drying; increasing mean rainfall causing reduction in soil suctions; increasing drought events leading to soil desiccation; and increasing intense precipitation causing soil erosion, flooding and hydro-mechanical failure).