Resilience Pilots - This project funds pilots for departments of transportation (DOTs), metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and Federal Land Management Agencies (FLMAs) to implement a framework to use in conducting vulnerability and risk assessments of infrastructure to the projected impacts of extreme weather events and to develop adaptation options.
Asset Management and Environmental Risk - This project produced six pilot project reports and a guidebook to help transportation agencies address extreme weather risk in asset management processes.
Nature-based Resilience for Coastal Highways - This project is investigating nature-based techniques (e.g. Living Shorelines) that could be implemented as part of highway and bridge planning, design, maintenance and construction to preserve and/or improve natural infrastructure function, thereby increasing the resilience of highways to the effects of storm surges and sea level rise. Project elements include green infrastructure assessment pilots, a white paper, regional peer exchanges, and an implementation guide.
Gulf Coast Study - Phase 1 (completed in 2008) examined the impacts of changes in temperature, precipitation, sea level rise, and tropic storms on transportation infrastructure in the Central Gulf Coast Region. Phase 2 (completed in 2015) developed a detailed vulnerability assessment for the Mobile, AL metropolitan area, analyzed engineering adaptation options for threatened roads and bridges, and built on lessons learned through the project to develop nationally applicable tools to help transportation agencies process and interpret data, assess vulnerabilities, and analyze adaptation options.
International Practices - FHWA has conducted research on how transportation agencies abroad are adapting their roadway infrastructure to severe weather events and changes in natural hazards. Learning from international practices helps FHWA avoid duplicative research, reduce overall costs, and accelerate improvements to our transportation system.
Transportation Engineering Approaches to Resilience This research project provides needed information to a range of engineering disciplines on integrating consideration of resilience to natural hazards into transportation project development, including:
Information on why, where, and how to integrate resilience considerations into the project development process
Practical information in related scientific and economic disciplines
Lessons learned from project-level studies of engineering adaptation options.
The engineering disciplines addressed are coastal hydraulics; riverine flooding; pavement and soils; and mechanical and electrical systems. In addition to a synthesis report, the project developed engineering assessments of options for adapting a diverse set of transportation assets from around the country (including roadways, bridges, pavements, culverts, and slopes), to changes in precipitation, sea level, storm surge, heat, drought, and wildfire.
