Flexible Pavements and Climate Change: A Comprehensive Review and Implications

Abstract

Flexible pavements and climate are interactive. Pavements are climate sensitive infrastructure, where climate can impact their deterioration rate, subsequent maintenance, and life-cycle costs. Meanwhile, climate mitigation measures are urgently needed to reduce the environmental impacts of pavements and related transportation on the macroclimate and microclimate. Current pavement design and life cycle management practices may need to be modified to adapt to changing climates and to reduce environmental impacts. This paper reports an extensive literature search on qualitative and quantitative pavement research related to climate change in recent years. The topics cover climate stressors, sensitivity of pavement performance to climatic factors, impacts of climate change on pavement systems, and, most importantly, discussions of climate change adaptation, mitigation, and their interactions. This paper is useful for those who aim to understand or research the climate resilience of flexible pavements.