Critical infrastructure

Extreme heat is becoming an operating condition. Keeping power, water and essential services running requires coordinated planning, data-sharing, governance and investment. The choices made now will shape resilience and competitiveness for years to come.

This paper proposes a Bridge Resilience System that integrates condition assessment, hazard exposure, vulnerability, risk, lifecycle costs and MCDM. A Kolhapur pilot shows that bridge resilience planning should extend beyond condition-based management.

This paper examines how temporary community facilities can instead operate as longer-term recovery assets by analyzing the Kumamoto Home-for-All Reutilization Project in Japan.

This report presents a scalable, data-driven methodology to help North Macedonia transition from reactive crisis management to proactive risk reduction and investment planning.

MIT's Climate Grand Challenges has produced 29 papers and a set of digital tools now reaching deployment, helping communities, emergency agencies and insurers assess local flood, cyclone and heat risk and plan infrastructure accordingly.

Researchers at IIT Madras have built a standalone application that uses thousands of years of earthquake data to calculate site-specific seismic risk for India's 6,500-plus large dams, helping authorities prioritise urgent safety upgrades.

Power systems remain vulnerable to natural disasters that cause widespread outages. Leveraging outage records from recent large-scale blackouts, this study establishes an empirical relationship between daily nightlight-intensity loss and power outages

Britain’s railway system has already been under stress from extreme heat this summer, with several operators reducing timetables and train speeds.

Environment Agency says talks under way about increasing prices for industrial users to try to reduce poor water management

This paper calls for a shift from Bridge Management Systems to Bridge Resilience Systems, integrating disaster governance, critical infrastructure, climate risk, ecosystem management and connectivity to protect essential functions during disruption.

This study introduces a structured framework for compiling a multi-hazard inventory of transport disruptions using open access news media.

Zoning restrictions can prevent new manufactured home parks from opening in safer locations, forcing disaster survivors to return to flood-prone areas.

They’re trying to prevent power lines from sparking catastrophic fires. But there are also worries about how the added expense will fall on ratepayers.

Contemporary transportation infrastructure is not designed for the extreme levels of heat as the frequency and severity of high temperatures increases. Those in charge must respond to increased stress on infrastructure systems, with mitigation techniques

This paper uses a GIS-based Flood Simulation Analysis to evaluate flood vulnerability of seven inland airports in the Ohio River Valley under two extreme precipitation scenarios: a short-duration flash flood and a longer duration regional event.

Extreme weather is increasingly disrupting roads, railways, airports and waterways, exposing vulnerabilities in transport networks and supply chains and highlighting the growing need for climate-resilient infrastructure and adaptation measures.

Solar power proved the only major energy source that performed better than normal during Europe’s summer of extremes, experts found. When paired with batteries, it helped supply thousands of AC units during historic hot conditions.

The IDB is advancing regenerative roads in Latin America and the Caribbean by integrating nature-based solutions to reduce risks and costs due to poor logistics performance, growing exposure to natural hazards, and accelerating loss of natural capital.

This study aims to identify shelter management challenges, existing practices, and resident-driven recommendations in four unions of Sarankhola, southwest Bangladesh, while also developing a perceived cyclone risk map.

Smartphones have become part of just about everyone’s emergency infrastructure. We use them to receive warnings, follow evacuation routes and road closures, locate shelters, contact family and track rapidly changing conditions.

The UK's pothole problem could one day be tackled from beneath the road surface, as researchers at the University of Surrey launch a pioneering trial that uses heat stored underground to keep roads cooler in summer, warmer in winter.

Adapting to the new hot dry summers is not difficult. Many countries deal with these sorts of extreme conditions ever single year. But it takes planning and investment in basic infrastructure, not just another emergency Cobra meeting.

Loose power lines in fire-prone forests have disproportionately set the country ablaze.

This study investigates the catastrophic September 2024 flood in the Czech Republic, focusing on its impact on bridge infrastructure.

This brief examines how power system resilience should be assessed and strengthened at the distribution network level, where electricity service reaches end users.

As NHS told to prepare for extreme weather, strain also felt in other areas including transport and farming.

Freight resilience is not only about how quickly infrastructure can be repaired after a disaster. It also depends on the policy settings already in place.

This paper estimates the operational effects and opportunity costs of weather-induced stoppages at the Rio Grande Port Complex, Brazil, over the period 2020–2024.

New study reveals growing exposure of roads, railways, ports, airports and inland waterways to climate extremes and unprecedented impacts.

Novel cable-stay reinforcement could help offshore wind turbines resist combined seismic, wind and wave loading.

It’s important to recognize that many schools are underprepared to carry out their days in extreme heat, without the physical infrastructure or planning to keep students and educators comfortable and safe in the classroom or outside on school grounds.

This report presents the Bridge Resilience System (BRS), an integrated digital platform that shifts bridge management from a reactive, distress-based model to a proactive, resilience-oriented framework for disaster risk reduction.

This post-disaster needs assessment examines the impacts of the 2024 floods in Western Province, Papua New Guinea. It identifies humanitarian needs and priority actions to support recovery and strengthen resilience.

This report analyses how the energy sector can overcome challenges and build climate-resilient energy systems that safeguard livelihoods and underpin sustainable growth.

Transportation resilience depends as much on coordination as infrastructure. Josh Rodriguez of AASHTO explains why effective preparedness begins long before a disaster occurs and how formal mutual aid transforms emergency response into planned capability.