A HOOVER INSTITUTION ESSAY

Hoover Institution
Ready for Tomorrow:
Seven Strategies for
Climate-Resilient Infrastructure

As climate change impacts emerge ever more forcefully around the globe, decision makers
have begun to ask, with increasing urgency, how they can make their communities and
businesses more resilient. One obvious place to start is infrastructure—those structures and
systems, such as roads, bridges, and water treatment facilities, that are designed to last fifty
years or more. If communities can make their investments in infrastructure resilient to the
impacts of climate change, they can increase the likelihood of rapid recovery from extreme
events and better protect economic strength, public health, and security. Infrastructure is
the backbone to building resilience. Making sure it can withstand not only the next storm
but also future climate-exacerbated storms is a goal that all should embrace. But how do
cities and regions build or retrofit infrastructure so that is resilient to climate change? It is
this question that this paper seeks to begin to answer.

This effort was borne out of discussions between the authors of this essay and reflects our
shared observation that the basic question of how to build climate-resilient infrastructure
is just beginning to be answered across the relevant sectors of finance, engineering, and
planning. In an effort to better understand the challenges and identify the most promising
opportunities, the Hoover Institution, along with non-financial sponsors the American
Society of Civil Engineers Committee on Adaptation to a Changing Climate, Stanford
Urban Resilience Initiative, and the University of Maryland Center for Technology and
Systems Management, co-convened a series of meetings with individuals and institutions
who are helping to lead global efforts to make infrastructure more resilient. To gain better
insight, we drew from a broad range of perspectives—from engineering to planning, from
developing to developed countries, and from risk mitigation to disaster response. The ideas
captured here reflect that breadth and the thoughtful input of representatives from thirty-
three organizations, including policy makers, emergency managers, financiers, development
experts, and climate scientists, together bringing decades of experience to bear.

We need to accelerate the pace at which we identify and address climate risks. We need to
learn faster and broadly apply the best ideas that are not yet in widespread practice. This
publication offers a road map on how to accomplish these goals, identifying principles,
strategies, and steps to scale up resilience. Our collective hope is that it can help guide the
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important journey of ensuring the resilience of critical infrastructure to future climate

impacts. We encourage an ongoing dialogue to quicken global learning.

How Can We Design, Fund, and Build Resilience into Public Investments in
Infrastructure?1
We are in a race against time to improve the resilience of the world’s infrastructure. With
each passing year, our infrastructure is increasingly stressed as we try to meet the needs
of a growing population and withstand the impacts of a changing climate. Although
governments and the private sector invest billions of dollars in new infrastructure each
year, that infrastructure is not routinely designed for the increasing effects of storms,
floods, droughts, wildfires, and other hazards that climate change brings, and thus the
world’s investments in infrastructure themselves are not yet resilient to the impacts of
climate change. Failing to ensure the climate resilience of infrastructure will have major
economic consequences. We can and must do better. The broad principles, strategies,
and steps described in this paper are intended to help the world achieve climate-resilient
infrastructure.

The Demand for Infrastructure and the Need for Resilience

Demand for infrastructure investment is increasing worldwide. From 2015 to 2030,
$90 trillion in new infrastructure investments will be needed—an amount equivalent
to the world’s total existing stock.2 The need is particularly urgent in rapidly growing
cities in developing countries.3 Much of the world’s new infrastructure will be built in
these countries, which face the dual challenges of responding to natural hazards and
rapid urbanization even as they work to address widespread poverty and build thriving
economies. Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean must double their current annual
investments in infrastructure to achieve development objectives, while Asia will require an
investment of $1.7 trillion per year in infrastructure through 2030 to maintain its growth
momentum, tackle poverty, and respond to climate change.4 The pressing demand for
infrastructure—and the financing required to realize it—is an enormous challenge. It also
provides an enormous opportunity to build a more resilient future.

Without significant improvements in infrastructure resilience, annual economic losses

from natural disasters’ damage to urban infrastructure alone will increase from $250 to
$300 billion currently to $415 billion by 2030.5 Damage from Hurricanes Harvey, Maria,
and Irma, for example, made 2017 the most expensive hurricane season in US history, with
approximately $265 billion in damages from those three storms alone.6 With accelerating
impacts from climate change—including sea-level rise, more extreme heat events, bigger
storms, increasing precipitation, and deeper droughts—these losses will continue to grow.

Developing more resilient infrastructure involves a broad range of actors. They include
policy makers, planners, investors and the financial sector, industry representatives,

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designers, engineers, researchers, disaster response professionals, standards developers,

beneficiaries, and community members. Together they are shaping the physical structures
and services required to meet communities’ needs for decades to come. All are stakeholders
in the long-term viability of infrastructure. Awareness is growing among these stakeholders
of the need to address these challenges. Yet the best existing ideas to achieve resilient
infrastructure are not yet in widespread practice.

We need to move faster. We need to scale up good practices rapidly even as we advance
our understanding of infrastructure resilience. Quicker action today can help ensure
that current investments are sound and will contribute to a more resilient future. Below
we outline several broad principles, strategies, and concrete steps needed to address this
challenge at a wider scale.

Principles
Several high-level principles should guide the development of more resilient infrastructure.
The first is to be proactive, doing what we can
now with both existing knowledge and foresight.
Uncertainty should not preclude action. A second Seven Strategies for
principle is that we must be fair, considering Climate-Resilient
the implications of decisions for those who are Infrastructure
particularly vulnerable. We need to directly and
consistently engage affected communities in
1. M
 ake better decisions in
the face of uncertainty.
decision making. A third, related principle is to
be inclusive, engaging all stakeholders early and
2. View infrastructure
often throughout the entire process. They should systemically.
include knowledge generators, knowledge users,
and impacted communities. An inclusive process 3. Take an iterative, multi-
helps to ensure that decisions are grounded in hazard approach.
the best available information and fit the needs
and values of those affected. Inclusivity can also 4. I mprove and inform
cost-benefit analysis
reduce future conflict, avoid negative unintended
(CBA).
consequences, identify a strong pool of options,
and increase support for the measures chosen.7 5. M
 ainstream nature-
A fourth principle is to be comprehensive, based infrastructure.
considering the full range of risks and means
to address them through planning, financing, 6. Jump-start resilience
and engineering. A holistic approach includes with immediate actions.
integrating social and ecological resilience
into decisions where appropriate. Strong social 7. Plan now to build back
better.
dynamics and healthy, functioning ecosystems
are critical to adaptive capacity—increasing

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communities’ and regions’ ability to respond effectively to both chronic stresses and
extreme events.8 These overarching principles provide context for implementing the
strategies below.

Seven Strategies
The following strategies are distilled from the work of thought leaders across many sectors
and disciplines. They are key concepts that should drive the design, funding, and building
of climate-resilient infrastructure, and they apply to both individual projects and systems.
They may involve changes in policies, advances in science and technology, and new
practices by decision makers, including policy makers, practitioners, and investors. These
strategies, if broadly applied, can produce robust and sustainable infrastructure, more cost-
effective investments, and reliable services to our growing cities and populations.

1. Make better decisions in the face of uncertainty.

Engineers typically design infrastructure to withstand a certain degree of climate risk,
based on the assumption that past climate is a reliable predictor of future conditions. This
assumption no longer holds. Long-lived infrastructure designed using past climate patterns
is at risk of underperforming or failing in the future. Climate projections carry uncertainty,
as it is impossible to precisely predict the factors driving future greenhouse gas emissions
and their effects on the climate. This type of uncertainty is new and distinct from risks that
engineers routinely consider.9 It creates challenges for infrastructure planners and engineers
unaccustomed to managing such ambiguities. There is a risk of over- or underbuilding,
which can, in turn, transfer risks to infrastructure investors or users.

Yet uncertainty about future climate conditions should not block action. Infrastructure
planners should employ new approaches that facilitate adaptive decision making and design
in the face of uncertainty.10 These approaches can incorporate uncertainty into project
design rather than attempting to engineer to a single climate future.11 They also can inform
decisions about how much to invest now versus later.

Working under uncertainty can require embracing flexibility to a higher degree than in
the past. Building in flexibility allows us to change course. Designers can preserve options
that may not seem justified or affordable today but could be important later as conditions
change or new information becomes available. Future options may include more aggressive
and capital-intensive measures, or designers may discard measures that no longer will
be effective under future conditions. These approaches recognize the informational and
budgetary constraints of today while preserving options for the future.

A corollary benefit is that decision-making methods that allow for greater flexibility can
lead to consideration of a broader range of stakeholder considerations. These may include
different ways of defining a failure, valuing nonmarket goods such as biodiversity, or

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defining the probabilities of different scenarios.12 Managing uncertainty builds on a

dialogue among decision makers, infrastructure designers, and users about the tradeoffs
between siting and design options and timing, costs, and resilience. The bottom line is that
explicitly accounting for uncertainty in project design can lead to better decisions.

2. View infrastructure systemically.

Infrastructure is more than individual structures. It is embedded in a complex and
interconnected world and includes natural, built, and human systems. There are often
strong interdependencies both within and among infrastructure systems. The failure of one
infrastructure component can trigger simultaneous failures or a cascading collapse of other
critical services. For example, when power supply is interrupted, services that are dependent
on electricity may also fail. These may include potable water supplies, communication, and
other critical infrastructure services. These failures may, in turn, affect emergency response,
health care, and habitability of residential areas, ultimately disrupting the well-being and
safety of communities and impacting industries and businesses.

Given the potential for these systemic impacts, it is important to screen for risks at a
systems level rather than looking only at individual assets. This approach can identify
interdependencies and possible interactions early in the planning process. It also can
reduce the need for asset-level fixes that may be more capital intensive and less effective in
achieving system-wide resilience. Systems thinking provides more opportunities to achieve
broad benefits and avoid maladaptation.13 Unfortunately, the structure of most financing
and regulatory policies typically reinforces a piecemeal, project-by-project approach to risk
assessment and management. Policy makers instead should work to support and incentivize
holistic approaches to risk management.

Pushing risk screening upstream to the earliest stages of systems planning or project
development gives planners and designers a fuller understanding of risks and a greater
range of management options.14 One of the most important stages is land use planning and
zoning. Considering where to build as well as how to build can reduce risks to individual
assets. Even more important, such consideration can reduce network disruptions and threats
to an entire area. Steering development away from high-hazard areas will lower the costs of
rebuilding after a disaster.

Looking at infrastructure as part of a system also provides more opportunities for policy
makers to support effective, climate-resilient development. Decisions regarding zoning and
incentives for resilient infrastructure can shape future growth, promote sustainability, and
avoid costly and maladaptive construction. Maintaining consistent standards across projects
also levels the playing field for developers and financiers.

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3. Take an iterative, multi-hazard approach.

Infrastructure often fails as a result of a combination of natural events and breakdowns in
social, technological, or institutional systems. However, conventional sensitivity analyses
and risk-management approaches typically consider only one stressor or risk at a time.
Since stressors rarely occur alone or lead to single impacts, a multi-hazard approach can
allow designers to consider interactions among risks and domino effects that may follow.15
Extending analysis beyond design events based on historical data is essential to improve
risk management.16 By understanding the conditions that support good performance and
asking which combination of factors could break the system or cause it to fail, infrastructure
designers can think more comprehensively about the value a project provides and factors
that could impede that service. Designers should move beyond standard risk screening
to imagine and define failure in physical, social, and economic terms and conduct a
holistic multi-hazard assessment.17 Incorporating flexibility and the other decision-making
approaches described in strategy number one can help, as can planning scenarios that
reveal which plans may succeed or fail. In addition, reviewing past failures caused by a
combination of stressors can help identify areas of future risk. A multi-hazard approach is
more realistic than conventional sensitivity analyses that examine one stressor at a time.

4. Improve and inform cost-benefit analysis (CBA).

CBA plays an important role in shaping infrastructure choices. Yet as it is traditionally
practiced, CBA can lead to less-resilient choices. This occurs when CBA accounts for the
upfront capital costs of infrastructure (which are higher for some resilience investments)
but not the associated benefits, such as reduced operational and maintenance costs over
the service life of the infrastructure.18 The economic or financial benefits of resilience,
as well as the costs of poor resilience, can be difficult to quantify. However, even when
quantification is possible, the way in which a CBA is conducted can limit its ability to
assess the incremental benefits of investments, cobenefits, and perverse impacts over the
service life of the infrastructure.19 In addition, CBA does not explicitly account for the value
of strategies that preserve future options, even though a flexible, adaptive management
approach to resilience may yield benefits as socioeconomic and environmental conditions
change over time.20 Traditional CBA also may include a range of other limitations.21 These
include difficulty in addressing uncertainty and failure to value nonmarket goods and
services. Undervaluing the benefits of ecosystem services can lead to a preference for “gray”
(conventional) or built infrastructure instead of green infrastructure (see strategy number
five).

Because many investors require use of CBA, it is important to improve and inform its
use. There are approaches to project evaluation that address some of the concerns listed
above.22 To better assess a project, CBA should consider the full life-cycle costs, the benefits
of investing in resilience, and the costs of inaction and unintended consequences.23 Given
these complexities, project analyses should recognize the limitations of CBA. Representing

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the value of a project in a single number may not provide the full picture, and decision
makers may benefit from additional quantitative and qualitative information not typically
accounted for in traditional CBA.

Extending a revised approach to CBA to the financial analysis of infrastructure investments

can improve risk assessments and identify resilience measures that lower financial risks.
Treating climate risks as an integral part of the overall financial analysis of infrastructure
investments has the potential to enhance not only the physical resilience of infrastructure
but also the financial resilience of the investment. Infrastructure funders routinely assess
risk factors that include overall commercial viability, completion risks, environmental
risks, operating risks, revenue risks, input supply risks, and contracting risks.24 Climate
change can impact each of these factors, and such impacts can be measured in terms of the
overall financial value at risk. Financial institutions should incorporate climate risk into
the cost of financing and reduce financial incentives to projects that are riskier by design.
Financiers can promote resilience through the financing of resilience measures, better risk
sharing among financial investors for public and private infrastructure projects, and a
comprehensive approach to procuring insurance or other risk-transfer mechanisms.

5. Mainstream nature-based infrastructure.

The use of nature-based, or green, solutions as either alternatives or complements to
conventional, or gray, infrastructure can help reduce risks, enhance resilience, and support
other objectives, including ecosystem restoration, protection or creation of green space
and recreation areas, and climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration.25
On its own, green infrastructure may be able to reduce risks from some hazards.26 For
example, mangroves protect coasts from wave damage and erosion, in addition to providing
cobenefits such as breeding grounds for fish and carbon sequestration.27

A combination of nature-based and conventional infrastructure may increase overall

resilience. This combined approach can provide redundancy and improve resilience to
unexpected events that coincide or cascade. For example, during a severe storm, healthy
wetlands can reduce the impacts of storm surge on coastal communities, reduce strain
on constructed storm drainage systems, and mitigate the risk of flooding and damage
to infrastructure. At the same time, these solutions may respond differently to a range
of hazards, thereby increasing system robustness through complementary adaptation
responses.

Investors may be hesitant to invest in nature-based infrastructure without a clear

understanding of its costs, benefits, and performance relative to conventionally built
infrastructure. Often nature-based solutions are excluded from traditional analyses such
as CBA, even though they may be effective in managing certain risks.28 In some cases,
they can achieve comparable resilience at lower cost, provide cobenefits that are typically

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not accounted for, or provide a flexible strategy that can be readily scaled up or adapted to
respond to changing conditions.29 Both nature-based and conventional approaches have
benefits and costs. To most effectively manage risks, it is important to consider a full range
of options, and how they may reinforce one another.

6. Jump-start resilience with immediate actions.

Uncertainty about the specifics of climate change and its local impacts should not delay
action. Infrastructure projects can get mired down in assessments of vulnerability and
uncertainty, and analysis paralysis can deter efforts to increase infrastructure resilience,
reinforcing the perception that resilience measures are time consuming, costly, and
complicated. Yet some measures have low or no incremental cost and little potential for
later regret. This is especially true of measures that can be integrated at the beginning of
new infrastructure projects or in the course of regular maintenance cycles for existing
infrastructure. Analysis to support these measures can be relatively quick, and existing
resources may allow for immediate implementation.30 Easily adopted resilience measures
include using pavement mixtures adapted to different extreme temperatures and freeze-
thaw cycles; increasing culvert size to accommodate higher peak-flood levels; adjusting
concrete composition to withstand ocean acidification; changing maintenance protocols to
remove debris from drainage systems that may clog during severe rain events; and removing
vegetation that may threaten power lines during wildfires.

While these rapidly deployable measures are not a substitute for longer-term solutions,
they can be useful starting points to reduce risk and demonstrate results. Quick, effective
actions can generate support for transformational measures that are more complex, capital
intensive, and time consuming.

7. Plan now to build back better.

Building back better can save money. Globally, the World Bank estimates that $173 billion
in annual disaster losses could be avoided if rebuilding were to be improved after each
disaster over the next twenty years.31 However, there are myriad social, financial, and
institutional constraints to improved rebuilding in the wake of devastating storms and other
weather-related disasters. Communities need to get back on their feet quickly, yet swiftly
rebuilding and replacing what was there too often re-creates or increases vulnerability to
future climate change impacts.32 People’s understandable desire to get back to normal as
quickly as possible can be stymied by insurance-related delays, zoning and property rights
disputes, and restrictions on how recovery funds can be spent or matched.

Postdisaster periods can provide unique windows of opportunity to promote resilience.

Significant funding is most likely to be available at these times; public interest and political
will often are at their highest; and major steps to foster climate-resilient development
may seem more feasible. To make use of this opportunity, planning should occur well in

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advance of disasters so that strategies will already have been negotiated with stakeholders
and will be ready for quick deployment. Predisaster planning can be valuable even when
the anticipated disaster does not occur, as it charts a path toward greater resilience. Policy
makers and other infrastructure actors should support communities in creating visions for a
resilient future that can be pursued incrementally, while also building blueprints for broader
transformation should a disaster occur. The latter may involve moving people, assets, and
infrastructure out of harm’s way rather than rebuilding in high-risk areas. Making carefully
considered, risk-informed investments in the wake of disasters can build more resilient
communities and protect people, property, and taxpayer dollars from future loss and
disruption.33

Getting to Scale
Climate change has put us in a race against time: we need to ensure that the billions of
dollars invested in infrastructure each year are well spent. Infrastructure investments
must fulfill their objectives over their entire design life, but today, unfortunately, much of
the planning and work needed to make infrastructure resilient is custom tailored to each
situation. We urgently need to move from individual case studies to broadly applicable
approaches. We need to achieve resilience at scale. A number of actions, outlined below, can
scale up the development of climate-resilient infrastructure.

First, invest in building human capacity and knowledge among all stakeholders.
We need to learn faster: adapting infrastructure requires new skills and abilities in diverse
fields. More people need the capacity to make and implement better infrastructure
decisions in the face of uncertainty, including policy makers, planners, investors and
the financial sector, industry representatives, designers, engineers, researchers, disaster
response professionals, standards developers, and community members. Building capacity
is particularly challenging where access to financial resources or cutting-edge expertise
is limited. Developed countries have remote and economically disadvantaged areas.
Developing countries, where most of the world’s new infrastructure will need to be built,
face the greatest challenges.

We need more effective strategies to build capacity throughout our educational processes.
Formal education—which creates the essential foundation for resilience work across
all disciplines—requires developing appropriate curricula and modules for training
professionals at different levels of sophistication. Learning by doing is important as well,
given the need to move forward now while developing better approaches for the future.
It is also important to learn from others to avoid needlessly duplicating efforts and to
accelerate learning. Advancing research that underpins decision making is critical. Work
is now under way—by the US Global Change Research Program, the National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and other bodies—to provide better information for
decision making. Similarly, programs such as the Least Developed Countries Universities

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Consortium on Climate Change are building international capacity through training and
research. These and other ongoing efforts are useful; more of them are needed to get to
scale.

Second, develop and update standards and manuals of practice for climate-resilient
infrastructure.
Most building codes and design standards do not account for a changing climate. The
development and revision of standards is typically a slow process. Informational materials
created by some professional associations can be useful in demonstrating how and why
considering climate change is important in building codes, standards, and manuals of
design, engineering, and planning practice.34 While much climate science has advanced
sufficiently to inform decision making, a central challenge remains: bringing these
advances into engineering practice in the form of technical basis documents. Transitioning
science to the engineering practice requires the collaboration of practitioners and
scientists in research and development. Together they can best craft the kinds of workable
solutions that underlie new or revised standards. In addition, investment and appraisal
methods are needed to incentivize financing for the least-cost pathway forward.35
Underlying all of this would be financial and technical support from agencies, such
as the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the National Institute
of Standards and Technology. This support is important for the development of technical
basis documents that are a foundation for standards. Preparing manuals of practice and
professional guides can serve as steps toward the development of standards, while also
providing interim opportunities for advancing engineering practices.36

Finally, get the incentives right.

Doing so requires incentivizing the financing of climate-resilient infrastructure. The
gap between current expenditures and investment needs is massive. Achieving climate-
resilient infrastructure at the scale necessary to narrow this gap will require mobilization
of both public and private finance. Some governments are using their purchasing to
increase the resilience of their investments. For example, New York City and the US Federal
Emergency Management Agency are using government-funded infrastructure investments
to promote “beyond code” compliance, meaning that they are raising standards above
the minimum requirements of local building codes.37 Often, however, federal, state, and
local governments inadvertently do just the opposite, encouraging risky behaviors, such as
rebuilding in flood zones after a disaster. There is a need, particularly in the short term, to
incentivize investments (through, e.g., resilience tax credits, loans, grants, etc.) to accelerate
investments in resilience.

At a global scale, development banks are mainstreaming climate resilience into

investments by performing individual risk assessments for a country, sector, and/or

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individual investment. For example, the World Bank is developing a rating system to
promote public- and private-sector investments in adaptation.38 The Global Commission
on Adaptation seeks to incorporate climate change risks into planning and is engaging
financial institutions, national finance ministries, banks, and businesses to increase
resilient investments. Going forward, a linchpin of success will be engagement of the
private sector, which is responsible for constructing and managing a significant fraction
of the world’s infrastructure. The financial and business case for resilience should integrate
climate risk assessments into investment decision making and monetize the potential
financial return from resilience investments. This practice should be paired with identifying
appropriate financing pathways, including public-private partnerships, so that the full
potential of private-sector engagement can be realized.

A range of new policies can create powerful incentives for resilient infrastructure. Smart
land-use planning and zoning can promote resilient growth. Building standards can create a
floor for performance and resilience. It is beyond the scope of this paper to fully explore the
range of relevant policies, but most actions described above have a policy component.

Moving Forward
Globally, we have gained experience in how to develop and maintain more resilient
infrastructure. Now is the time to move forward, accelerate learning, and scale up. The ideas
outlined here can help us to ensure that the trillions of dollars in infrastructure investments
contribute to a more resilient future. We encourage an ongoing dialogue to accelerate
the pace at which we learn from one another. Together we can plan, build, and maintain
infrastructure resilient to our changing world.

NOTES
1 ​For the purposes of this discussion, public investments means federal, state, and local investments funded
through taxpayer financing or borrowing and includes funds for international development.

2 ​Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), “Inter-American Development Bank Sustainability Report 2017”
(2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0001034.

3 ​US Agency for International Development (USAID), “Climate Resilient Infrastructure Services: Lessons Learned,”
prepared by Engility Corporation and ICF International (2015a), https://docs.google.com/a/ccrdproject.com
/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=Y2NyZHByb2plY3QuY29tfGNjcmR8Z3g6NGFiMGI3MDFlM2ZjNjM4MA.

4 ​For Africa, see ibid.; Infrastructure Consortium for Africa (ICA), Infrastructure Financing Trends in Africa—2016
(Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire: 2017), https://www.icafrica.org/fileadmin/documents/IFT_2016/Infrastructure_Financing_
Trends_2016.pdf; and African Development Bank (AfDB), African Economic Outlook 2018 (2018), https://www
.icafrica.org/fileadmin/documents/Knowledge/GENERAL_INFRA/AfricanEconomicOutlook2018.pdf. For Asia, see
Asian Development Bank (ADB), Meeting Asia’s Infrastructure Needs (2017), https://www.adb.org/publications
/asia-infrastructure-needs.

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5 ​United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), “Disaster Recovery: Challenges and Lessons” (2016), http://
www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/Climate%20and%20Disaster%20Resilience/UNDP_Recovery%20
Infographic_Final_16April2016.pdf.

6 ​Willie Drye, “2017 Hurricane Season Was the Most Expensive in U.S. History,” National Geographic News,
November 30, 2017, https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/11/2017-hurricane-season-most-expensive-us
-history-spd; and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), “Costliest U.S. Tropical Cyclones
Tables Updated” (2018), https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/news/UpdatedCostliest.pdf.

7 ​US Department of Energy (US DOE), Climate Change and the Electricity Sector: Guide for Assessing Vulnerabilities
and Developing Resilience Solutions to Sea Level Rise (2016), https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/07
/f33/Climate%20Change%20and%20the%20Electricity%20Sector%20Guide%20for%20Assessing%20
Vulnerabilities%20and%20Developing%20Resilience%20Solutions%20to%20Sea%20Level%20Rise%20July%20
2016.pdf; US DOE, Climate Change and the Electricity Sector: Guide for Climate Change Resilience Planning (2016),
https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/10/f33/Climate%20Change%20and%20the%20Electricity%20
Sector%20Guide%20for%20Climate%20Change%20Resilience%20Planning%20September%202016_0.pdf;
“Collaborative Risk Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA)” (2017), http://test1.agwaguide.org/CRIDA; National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), “Community Resilience Planning Guide” (2015), https://www
.nist.gov/topics/community-resilience/community-resilience-planning-guide; and Graham George Watkins,
Sven-Uwe Mueller, Hendrik Meller, Maria Cecilia Ramirez, Tomás Serebrisky, and Andreas Georgoulias, Lessons
from Four Decades of Infrastructure Project-Related Conflicts in Latin America and the Caribbean (Inter-American
Development Bank [IADB]: 2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0000803. Zamuda, C., D.E. Bilello, G. Conzelmann,
E. Mecray, A. Satsangi, V. Tidwell, and B.J. Walker, 2018: Energy Supply, Delivery, and Demand. In Impacts, Risks,
and Adaptation in the United States: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II [Reidmiller, D.R., C.W. Avery,
D.R. Easterling, K.E. Kunkel, K.L.M. Lewis, T.K. Maycock, and B.C. Stewart (eds.)]. U.S. Global Change Research
Program, Washington, DC, USA, pp. 174–201. doi: 10.7930/NCA4.2018.CH4

8 ​Karin de Bruijn, Joost Buurman, Marjolein Mens, Ruben Dahm, and Frans Klijn, “Resilience in Practice: Five
Principles to Enable Societies to Cope with Extreme Weather Events,” Environmental Science & Policy 70 (2017):
21–30, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2017.02.001.

9 ​Some experts refer to this as “deep uncertainty,” which emerges when future conditions cannot be reliably
quantified, either because the mechanisms involved are too complex to be modeled or because the parameters of
the model may vary over time. See Laura Tuck and Julie Rozenberg, “Embracing Uncertainty for Better Decision-
Making,” World Bank Group Infrastructure & Public Private Partnerships Blog (2016), http://blogs.worldbank.org
/ppps/embracing-uncertainty-better-decision-making.

10 ​American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Climate-Resilient Infrastructure: Adaptive Design and Risk
Management, edited by Bilal M. Ayyub (Committee on Adaptation to a Changing Climate: 2018), https://
ascelibrary.org/doi/book/10.1061/9780784415191; Bilal M. Ayyub and George J. Klir, Uncertainty Modeling and
Analysis in Engineering and the Sciences (Chapman & Hall/CRC Press: 2006); and Climate-Safe Infrastructure
Working Group (CSIWG), Paying It Forward: The Path toward Climate-Safe Infrastructure in California (Sacramento,
CA: 2018), http://resources.ca.gov/climate/climate-safe-infrastructure-working-group. Examples of new design
approaches that address uncertainty include robust decision making (RDM), probabilistic risk management, real
options analysis (ROA), Climate Risk Informed Decision Analysis (Mendoza et al. 2018), and adaptation pathways.

11 ​World Bank, Hydropower Sector Climate Resilience Guidelines (2017), beta version.

12 ​Nidhi Kalra, Stéphane Hallegatte, Robert Lempert, Casey Brown, Adrian Fozzard, Stuart Gill, and Ankur Shah,
“Agreeing on Robust Decisions: New Processes for Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty,” Policy Research
Working Paper no. 6906 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2014), https://openknowledge.worldbank.org
/handle/10986/18772.

Ready for Tomorrow: Seven Strategies for Climate-Resilient Infrastructure

 13

13 ​Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), “Toward Climate Resilience: A Framework and Principles for Science-
Based Adaptation” (2016), https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/06/climate-resilience-
framework-and-principles.pdf; and UCS, “Principles for Climate-Smart Infrastructure” (2017), https://www
.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/gw-smart-infrastructure-pricncipals.pdf.

14 ​Asian Development Bank (ADB), Guidelines for Climate Proofing Investment in Agriculture, Rural Development,
and Food Security (2012), https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/institutional-document/33720/files/guidelines
-climate-proofing-investment.pdf.

15 ​Jakob Zscheischler, Seth Westra, Bart J. J. M. van den Hurk, Sonia I. Seneviratne, Philip J. Ward, Andy Pitman,
Amir AghaKouchak, et al., “Future Climate Risk from Compound Events.” Nature Climate Change 8 (2018):
469–77, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0156-3; A. R. Ganguly, U. Bhatia, and S. E. Flynn, Critical
Infrastructures Resilience: Policy and Engineering Principles (Routledge: 2018); and Bilal M. Ayyub, Risk Analysis in
Engineering and Economics, 2nd ed. (Chapman & Hall/CRC Press: 2014).

16 ​De Bruijn et al., “Resilience in Practice.”

17 ​UCS, “Principles for Climate-Smart Infrastructure.”

18 ​Deloitte Access Economics, Building Resilient Infrastructure (Sydney, Australia: 2016), https://www.iag.com.au
/sites/default/files/Documents/Announcements/ABR_Report-Building-resilient-infrastructure-020316.pdf.

19 ​Fran Sussman, Anne Grambsch, Jia Li, and Christopher P. Weaver, “Introduction to a Special Issue Entitled
Perspectives on Implementing Benefit-Cost Analysis in Climate Assessment,” Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis 5, no. 3
(2014): 333–46, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270957844_Introduction_to_a_special_issue
_entitled_Perspectives_on_Implementing_Benefit-Cost_Analysis_in_Climate_Assessment.

20 ​R. de Neufville and S. Scholtes, Flexibility in Engineering Design (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011).

21 ​Additional challenges to CBA include equitably accounting costs and benefits (United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC], “Assessing the Costs and Benefits of Adaptation Options: An Overview
of Approaches” [2011], https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/publications/pub_nwp_costs_benefits_adaptation.pdf)
and valuing design flexibility, considering broader economic impacts (and not only project financials), and setting
appropriate discount rates and time horizons.

22 ​These include real options analysis, probabilistic risk management, robust decision making, and adaptation
pathways, discussed earlier (see note 10).

23 ​CSIWG, Paying It Forward.

24 ​World Bank, “Emerging Trends in Mainstreaming Climate Resilience in Large-Scale, Multi-Sector Infrastructure
PPPs,” World Bank Group, PPIAF (2016), https://library.pppknowledgelab.org/attached_files/documents/2874
/original/Mainstreaming_Climate_Resilience.pdf.

25 ​Brett Webb, Scott Douglass, Brenda Dix, and Susan Asam, “White Paper: Nature-Based Solutions for
Coastal Highway Resilience” (Federal Highways Administration: 2018), https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/
sustainability/resilience/ongoing_and_current_research/green_infrastructure/nature_based_solutions; USAID,
Green Infrastructure Resource Guide (2017), https://www.usaid.gov/infrastructure/engineering/green
-infrastructure-resource-guide; and Georgetown Climate Center, “Green Infrastructure Toolkit” (Georgetown Law:
2016), https://www.georgetownclimate.org/adaptation/toolkits/green-infrastructure-toolkit/introduction.html.

26 ​S. Narayan, M. W. Beck, P. Wilson, C. Thomas, A. Guerrero, C. Shepard, B. G. Reguero, et al., “Coastal Wetlands
and Flood Damage Reduction: Using Risk Industry-Based Models to Assess Natural Defenses in the Northeastern
USA” (London: Lloyd’s Tercentenary Research Foundation, 2016), https://www.nature.org/content/dam/tnc
/nature/en/documents/Coastal_wetlands_and_flood_damage_reduction.pdf.

Hoover Institution  •  Stanford University

14

27 ​M. Spalding, A. McIvor, F. H. Tonneijck, S. Tol, and P. van Eijk, “Mangroves for Coastal Defence: Guidelines for
Coastal Managers & Policy Makers” (Wetlands International and The Nature Conservancy: 2014), https://www
.nature.org/media/oceansandcoasts/mangroves-for-coastal-defence.pdf.

28 ​Narayan et al., “Coastal Wetlands and Flood Damage Reduction.”

29 ​United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)—DHI, “Nature-Based Solutions for Water Management: The
Quick Guide” (2018), http://www.unepdhi.org/-/media/40365dcfebca4253bb3b485f2cf29e6a.ashx; and Stijn
Temmerman, Patrick Meire, Tjeerd J. Bouma, Peter M. Herman, Tom Ysebaert, and Huib J. De Vriend, “Ecosystem-
Based Coastal Defence in the Face of Global Change,” Nature 504 (2013): 79–83, https://www.nature.com/articles
/nature12859.

30 ​USAID, “Fast-Track Implementation of Climate Adaptation: Working Paper,” prepared by Engility Corporation,
ICF International, and Stratus Consulting (2015b), https://www.climatelinks.org/sites/default/files/asset
/document/Fast-Track%20Implementation%20of%20Climate%20Adaptation.pdf.

31 ​Stéphane Hallegatte, Jun Rentschler, and Brian Walsh, Building Back Better: Achieving Resilience through
Stronger, Faster, and More Inclusive Post-Disaster Reconstruction (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2018), https://
openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29867.

32 ​Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to
Advance Climate Change Adaptation, Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, edited by C. B. Field, V. Barros, T. F. Stocker, D. Qin, D. J. Dokken, K. L. Ebi, et al. (Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srex/SREX_Full_Report
.pdf.

33 ​In the United States, revisions to the Stafford Act could ease this “building back better” by providing upfront
funding for mitigation and preparedness.

34 ​ASCE, Climate-Resilient Infrastructure.

35 ​K. Maxwell, S. Julius, A. Grambsch, A. Kosmal, L. Larson, and N. Sonti, “Built Environment, Urban Systems, and
Cities,” in Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States: Fourth National Climate Assessment, vol. 2, ch. 11,
pp. 438–78, edited by D. R. Reidmiller, C. W. Avery, D. R. Easterling, K. E. Kunkel, K. L. M. Lewis, T. K. Maycock, and
B. C. Stewart (Washington, DC: US Global Change Research Program, 2018), doi: 10.7930/NCA4.2018.CH1. https://
nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/11.

36 ​An example of this approach is the ASCE manual of practice, Climate-Resilient Infrastructure.

37 ​NYC Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency, “Climate Resiliency Design Guidelines” (2018), https://www1
.nyc.gov/assets/orr/pdf/NYC_Climate_Resiliency_Design_Guidelines_v2-0.pdf.

38 ​World Bank, The World Bank Group Action Plan on Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience (Washington, DC:
World Bank, 2019).

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Ready for Tomorrow: Seven Strategies for Climate-Resilient Infrastructure

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Participating Organizations
Alliance for Global Water Adaptation
Alliance for National & Community Resilience
American Institute of Architects
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North South University
Stanford Urban Resilience Initiative
University of Maryland Center for Technology and Systems Management

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The preferred citation for this publication is

Hill, Alice C., Douglas Mason, Joanne R. Potter, Molly Hellmuth, Bilal M. Ayyub, and Jack W. Baker. Ready for Tomorrow:
Seven Strategies for Climate-Resilient Infrastructure. Hoover Institution, 2019.

Hoover Institution  •  Stanford University

ALICE C. HILL DOUGLAS MASON EDITORS
Alice C. Hill is a Hoover Institution Douglas Mason is director Peter Schultz—ICF
research fellow focused on of environmental and social
mitigating catastrophic risks, performance at the Millennium Stephanie Strazisar—Hoover Institution
including climate change impacts. Challenge Corporation. Through Stacy Swann—Climate Finance Advisors
She has previously served as a his work with international
federal prosecutor, judge, special development organizations and in
assistant to the president, and the private sector, he has guided
senior director for the National the development of $40 billion CONTRIBUTORS
Security Council, where she led in infrastructure investments. He Vicki Arroyo—Georgetown Climate Center
development of federal standards holds a doctorate and master’s
for natural hazards. degree from the University of Steven Bingler—Concordia
Wisconsin–Madison.
Thomas P. Bostick—Intrexon

Judsen Bruzgul—ICF

JOANNE R. POTTER MOLLY HELLMUTH Ryan M. Colker—Alliance for National &

Community Resilience
Joanne R. Potter, a principal with Dr. Molly Hellmuth is the Africa
ICF, specializes in climate change climate and international energy Hope Herron—Tetra Tech
adaptation and resilience. She has sector resilience lead for ICF’s
Mizan R. Khan—North South University
worked with local and national Climate Adaptation and Resilience
governments globally for more group. With over twenty years Ann Kosmal
than twenty years to advance of international development
sustainable infrastructure and experience, she provides technical Denise Leung—Millennium Challenge Corporation
urban development. She holds a assistance to ensure the climate
Xianfu Lu—Asian Development Bank
master’s degree in city planning resilience of infrastructure
from the Massachusetts Institute of investments and their intended John H. Matthews—Alliance for Global Water
Technology. development benefits. Adaptation

Rachel Minnery—American Institute of Architects

Julie Morris—ICF
BILAL M. AYYUB JACK W. BAKER Susanne C. Moser—Susanne Moser Research &
Dr. Bilal M. Ayyub is a University Dr. Jack Baker is associate professor Consulting
of Maryland professor of civil of civil and environmental
Franklin W. Nutter—Reinsurance Association of
and environmental engineering engineering at Stanford University
America
and the director of the Center and director of the Stanford
for Technology and Systems Urban Resilience Initiative. He Laura Petes—National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Management. He researches risk develops tools for managing Administration
and uncertainty for systems. He has risk due to extreme loads on the
coauthored about 650 publications, built environment and works Kathleen D. White
including eight textbooks and with engineers, insurers, and
Michelle Wyman—National Council for Science
fifteen edited books, and is the infrastructure operators to support
and the Environment
recipient of several research awards decision making regarding
and prizes. catastrophe risk. Craig Zamuda—US Department of Energy

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