Sustainability and Resilience

I'm working on improving how climate projections get incorporated into infrastructure design and wanted to get a pulse on current practice.

For those of you designing infrastructure with 50+ year design lives (bridges, buildings, water systems, etc.):

How are you accounting for changing climate conditions?

• Are you using future climate projections at all, or sticking with historical data?
• If using projections, where does the data come from? (CMIP6, state/federal guidance, third-party consultant, other?)
• Does your client or AHJ specify what to use, or do you have flexibility?
• Who on your team handles the climate data selection/processing?
• How much scrutiny does your climate methodology get during peer review?

Curious if there's an emerging consensus on best practices or if everyone's still figuring this out project-by-project.

Thanks in advance for any insights!

#ClimateAdaptationPracticesandFinancing

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DJ Rasmussen, PhD, M.ASCE
Applied Climate Scientist
San Diego CA
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This is a very relevant question, especially for infrastructure with long service life.

In my experience, one of the main challenges is that most design standards are still based primarily on historical data, while climate conditions are already changing. This creates uncertainty in long-term reliability and risk assessment.

Future climate projections are very useful, but their practical application is often limited by the lack of clear guidance in codes and by difficulties in translating projections into specific design parameters.

In many projects, the final decision depends on client requirements, risk tolerance, and economic justification. Conservative assumptions are often used when future conditions may increase risk.

I believe climate data integration will become a standard part of infrastructure design, especially as resilience and lifecycle performance become higher priorities.

I am curious, in your experience, are climate projections already influencing official design requirements, or are they still mainly used as supplementary analysis?

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Darya Stanskova M.ASCE
Cost Estimator, Construction Engineer, Power Engineer, Project Manager
Fort Myers FL
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