INTEGRATING CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION INTO INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT MANAGEMENT: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF GLOBAL MODELS

Abstract

Climate-driven disruptions to infrastructure systems include rising sea levels, intense precipitation, heat stress, and storm surges that are increasing in weakness to infrastructure systems across the world. The changes undermine the conservative, stagnant approaches to infrastructure project management (PM), which is founded on deterministic design principles grounded on historical climate data. The pressing need to incorporate climate change adaptation (CCA) in the infrastructure PM has led to governments, financiers and standardization organizations coming up with different models and frameworks. This paper clearly presents the world models that inform the incorporation of CCA within the infrastructure life cycle- which involves planning, design, procurement, construction, operation and decommissioning.

Through a systematic literature and policy review approach, the study identifies five major categories of adaptation integration: (1) standards-based adaptation and risk-management models (e.g., ISO 14090/14091, ISO 31000); (2) regulatory and finance-driven frameworks (e.g., EU Climate-Proofing Guidance, EU Taxonomy); (3) sectoral toolkits (e.g., PIARC, FHWA); (4) development-finance safeguards (e.g. World Bank,

The results indicate that although standards and toolkits provide process-based structures, DMDU approaches are the only methods that deal with uncertainty and variability in the long run. The regulatory and finance mechanisms also encourage the integration of the adaptation criteria in the project appraisal and procurement. Nevertheless, loopholes in equity integration, outcome measurement, compound risk treatment and operationalization of adaptive triggers remain. The paper suggests a synthesis framework to address these gaps and suggests the incorporation of ISO 14090 governance, DMDU appraisal and climate-proofing compliance in the infrastructure PM. It concludes the review with the finding that climate-resilient infrastructure must shift its paradigm to one of design to stay stable and manage to be flexible.