Incorporating Climate Change in Pavement Maintenance Policies: Application to Temperature Rise in the Isfahan County, Iran

Abstract

Although temperature rise is imminent in Iran and could damage asphalt pavements, no national guide exists to adapt them. To ensure the sustainability of pavements against temperature rise, a county-level methodology based on machine-learning algorithms was developed. To show the applicability of the framework, the Isfahan County was studied. The county's climate was found to change from cold-semi-desert to relatively-warm-semi-desert in future decades. Then, optimal maintenance policies before and after climate change were identified. It was concluded that optimal policies of arterial roads before and after climate change were more intense than those of local roads. Furthermore, optimal policies after climate change were more intense than those before climate change at additional costs of 1379.57 MR/KM and 632.49 MR/KM respectively for arterial and local roads. The same methodology could be applied to sustainably adapt asphalt pavements of other counties. To validate the research, a questionnaire survey of pavement management and climate change experts was done. The experts confirmed that the methodology facilitates achieving sustainable development goals #9, #11, and #13 by improving maintenance budget allocation, enhancing policy-makers communication with authorities, maintaining adequate technical and end-user levels of service, and adapting pavements to climate change through cost-effective and performance-effective maintenance policies.