Optimal life-cycle adaptation of coastal infrastructure under climate change

Ashmita Bhattacharya (), Konstantinos G. Papakonstantinou (), Gordon P. Warn (), Lauren McPhillips, Melissa M. Bilec, Chris E. Forest, Rahaf Hasan and Digant Chavda
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Ashmita Bhattacharya: The Pennsylvania State University
Konstantinos G. Papakonstantinou: The Pennsylvania State University
Gordon P. Warn: The Pennsylvania State University
Lauren McPhillips: The Pennsylvania State University
Melissa M. Bilec: University of Pittsburgh
Chris E. Forest: The Pennsylvania State University
Rahaf Hasan: University of Pittsburgh
Digant Chavda: The Pennsylvania State University

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: Abstract Climate change-related risk mitigation is typically addressed using cost-benefit analysis that evaluates mitigation strategies against a wide range of simulated scenarios and identifies a static policy to be implemented, without considering future observations. Due to the substantial uncertainties inherent in climate projections, this identified policy will likely be sub-optimal with respect to the actual climate trajectory that evolves in time. In this work, we thus formulate climate risk management as a dynamic decision-making problem based on Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) and Partially Observable MDPs (POMDPs), taking real-time data into account for evaluating the evolving conditions and related model uncertainties, in order to select the best possible life-cycle actions in time, with global optimality guarantees for the formulated optimization problem. The framework is developed for coastal adaptation applications, considering a wide variety of possible action types, including various forms of nature-based infrastructure. Related environmental impacts of carbon emissions and uptake are also incorporated, and social cost of carbon implications are discussed, together with several future directions and supported features.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-55679-9

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