Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Groundwater Related Impacts of Climate Change on Infrastructure

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Climate Change and Groundwater: Planning and Adaptations for a Changing and Uncertain Future

Part of the book series: Springer Hydrogeology ((SPRINGERHYDRO))

Abstract

Climate change will impact physical infrastructure, including water, wastewater, transportation, energy, residential, commercial, and industrial facilities, in many manners. Most basically, communities and facilities located in low-lying coastal areas will become increasingly vulnerable to inundation from rising sea levels, initially during storm and extreme tidal events, and eventually permanently as mean sea level approaches land surface. Heavy precipitation events and associated flooding will also impact infrastructure in low-lying coastal and riverine (flood plain) areas. Coastal flooding can be caused by direct ingress of seawater, through rising groundwater levels (i.e., groundwater inundation; GWI), and in some instances backflow through stormwater drain systems. GWI can be more difficult to manage than direct marine flooding because conventional physical barriers (e.g., sea walls, dikes, and levees), depending on their construction and local hydrogeology, may be largely ineffective. Climate change impacts could accelerate physical degradation of the built environment, and increase operation, maintenance, engineering design, and construction costs to support long-lived public water, wastewater, road, and other systems.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Agravante M (2019) Climate change is forcing major airports to future-proof against rising sea levels and floods. Inhabitat (October 14, 2019). https://inhabitat.com/climate-change-is-forcing-major-airports-to-future-proof-against-rising-sea-levels-and-floods/. Accessed 24 May 2020

  • Al-Otaibi M, Mukhopadhyay A (2005) Options for managing water resources in Kuwait. Arabian J Sci Eng 30:55–68

    Google Scholar 

  • Al-Othman AA (2011) Implication of gravity drainage plan on shallow rising groundwater conditions in parts of ArRiyadh City, Saudi Arabia. Int J Phys Sci 6(7):1611–1619

    Google Scholar 

  • Al-Sefry SA, Åžen Z (2006) Groundwater rise problem and risk evaluation in major cities of arid lands–Jedddah Case in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Water Resour Manage 20(1):91–108

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Al-Senafy M, Hadi K, Fadlelmawla A, Al-Fahad K, Al-Khalid A, Bhandary H (2015) Causes of groundwater rise at Al-Qurain residential area, Kuwait. Procedia Environ Sci 25:4–10

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alves L (2019) San Francisco Airport Building Wall to Contain Sea Level Rise (October 11, 2019). Miami Beach Times. https://miamibeachtimes.com/real-estate/national-and-global-real-estate/san-francisco-airport-building-wall-to-contain-sea-level-rise/. Accessed 18 June 2020

  • Azevedo de Almeida B, Mostafavi A (2016) Resilience of infrastructure systems to sea-level rise in coastal areas: Impacts, adaptation measures, and implementation challenges. Sustainability 8(11):1115

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bawden GW, Sneed N, Stork SV, Galloway DL (2003) Measuring human-induced land subsidence from space. U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 069-03

    Google Scholar 

  • Bob M, Rahman N, Elamin A, Taher S (2016) Rising groundwater levels problem in urban areas: a case study from the Central Area of Madinah City, Saudi Arabia. Arabian J Sci Eng 41(4):1461–1472

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bloetscher F, Hoermann S, Berry L (2017) Adaptation to Florida’s urban infrastructure to climate change. In: Chassignet EP, Jones JW, Misra V, Obeysekera J (eds) Florida’s climate: changes, variations, & impacts. Florida Climate Institute, Gainesville, pp 311–338

    Google Scholar 

  • Brassington FC, Rushton KR (1987) A rising water table in central Liverpool. Q J Eng Geol Hydrogeol 20(2):151–158

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bürgmann R, Rosen PA, Fielding EJ (2000) Synthetic aperture radar interferometry to measure Earth’s surface topography and its deformation. Annu Rev Earth Planet Sci 28:169–209

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Cabral-Cano E, Dixon TH, Miralles-Wilhelm F, Díaz-Molina O, Sánchez-Zamora O, Carande RE (2008) Space geodetic imaging of rapid ground subsidence in Mexico City. Geol Soc Am Bull 120:1556–1566

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen J, Mueller V (2018) Coastal climate change, soil salinity and human migration in Bangladesh. Nat Climate Change 8(11):981–985

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Cooper JA, Loomis GW, Amador JA (2016) Hell and high water: diminished septic system performance in coastal regions due to climate change. PloS One 11(9)

    Google Scholar 

  • Ellis JB (2001) Sewer infiltration/exfiltration and interactions with sewer flows and groundwater quality. In: 2nd international conference interactions between sewers, treatment plants and receiving waters in urban areas–Interurba II, pp 19–22

    Google Scholar 

  • Flood JF, Cahoon LB (2011) Risks to coastal wastewater collection systems from sea-level rise and climate change. J Coastal Res 27(4):652–660

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Foose RM, Humphreville JA (1979) Engineering geological approaches to foundations in the karst terrain of the Hershey Valley. Bull Assoc Eng Geol 16(3):355–381

    Google Scholar 

  • Foster SSD (1990) Impacts of urbanization on groundwater. In: Massing H, Packman J, Zuidema F (eds) Hydrological processes and water management in urban areas. Papers from urban water ‘88 symposium at Duisburg, Germany, April 1988, IAHS Publ. 198, pp 187–207. International Association of Hydrological Sciences, Wallingford

    Google Scholar 

  • Galloway D, Jones DR, Ingebritsen SE (1999) Land subsidence in the United States. Circular 1182. U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Galloway DL, Burbey TJ (2011) Regional land subsidence accompanying groundwater extraction. Hydrogeol J 19(8):1459–1486

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Galloway DL, Hoffmann J (2007) The application of satellite differential SAR interferometry-derived groundwater displacements in hydrogeology. Hydrogeol J 15:133–154

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Galloway D, Riley FS (1999) San Joaquin Valley, California. In Galloway D, Jones DR, Ingebritsen SE (eds) Land subsidence in the United States. Circular 1182, pp 23–34. U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Galloway D, Jones DR, Ingebritsen SE (2000) Land Subsidence in the United States. Fact Sheet 165-00. U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Ge L, Li X, Chang HC, Ng AH, Zhang K, Hu Z (2010) Impact of ground subsidence on the Beijing-Tianjin high-speed railway as mapped by radar interferometry. Ann GIS 16(2):91–102

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gee GW, Fayer MJ, Rockhold ML, Campbell MD (1992) Variations in recharge at the Hanford Site. Northwest Science 66:237–250

    Google Scholar 

  • George DI (1992) Rising groundwater: a problem of development in some urban areas of the Middle East. In: McCallD GJH, Laming JC, Scott SC (eds) Geohazards. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 171–182

    Google Scholar 

  • Greene R, Timms W, Rengasamy P, Arshad M, Cresswell R (2016) Soil and aquifer salinization: Toward an integrated approach for salinity management of groundwater. In: Jakeman AJ, Barreteau O, Hunt RJ, Rinaudo J-D, Ross A (eds) Integrated groundwater management. Springer, Cham, pp 377–412

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Habel S, Fletcher CH, Rotzoll K, El-Kadi AI (2017) Development of a model to simulate groundwater inundation induced by sea-level rise and high tides in Honolulu, Hawaii. Water Res 114:122–134

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Habel S, Fletcher CH, Anderson TR, Thompson PR (2020) Sea-level rise induced multi-mechanism flooding and contribution to urban infrastructure failure. Sci Rep 10:3796

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Hamdan L, Mukhopadhyay A (1991) Numerical simulation of subsurface-water rise in Kuwait City. Groundwater 29(1):93–104

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hanson BR, Grattan SR, Fulton A (2006) Agricultural salinity and drainage. UC Davis Publication 3375

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoffmann J, Galloway DL, Zebker HA (2003) Inverse modeling of interbed storage parameters using land subsidence observations, Antelope Valley, California. Water Resour Res 39(2):1031

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Holzer TL, Galloway DL (2005). Impacts of land subsidence caused by withdrawal of underground fluids in the United States. In: Ehlen J, Haneberg WC, Larson RA (eds) Humans as geologic agents. Reviews in Engineering Geology v. XVI, pp 87–99. Geological Society of America, Boulder

    Google Scholar 

  • Howard F (2019) Spring floods send raw sewage into nation’s waterways (May 8, 2019) Agri-Pulse. https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/12163-spring-floods-send-raw-sewage-into-nations-waterways. Accessed 18 June 2020

  • Hummel MA, Berry MS, Stacey MT (2018) Sea level rise impacts on wastewater treatment systems along the US coasts. Earth’s Future 6(4):622–633

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Keese KE, Scanlon BR, Reedy RC (2005) Assessing controls on diffuse groundwater recharge using unsaturated flow modeling. Water Resour Res 41:W06010

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Kim JH, Jackson RB (2012) A global analysis of groundwater recharge for vegetation, climate, and soils. Vadose Zone J 11(1). https://doi.org/10.2136/vzj2011.0021ra

  • Kreibich H, Thieken AH (2008) Assessment of damage caused by high groundwater inundation. Water Resour Res 44(9):W09409

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Lamoreaux PE, Newton JG (1986) Catastrophic subsidence: an environmental hazard, Shelby County, Alabama. Environ Geol Water Sci 8(1–2):25–40

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Leake SA (2004) Land subsidence from ground-water pumping: U.S. Geological Survey. http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/changes/anthropogenic/subside/. Accessed 2 June 2020

  • Lee RW, Glater J, Cohen Y, Martin C, Kovac K, Milobar MN, Bartel DW (2003) Low-pressure RO membrane desalination of agricultural drainage water. Desalination 155(2):109–120

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lerner DN (1986) Leaking pipes recharge ground water. Ground Water 24:654–662

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lerner DN (1990) Recharge due to urbanization. In: Lerner DN, Issar AS, Simmers I (eds) Groundwater recharge, a guide to understanding and estimating natural recharge, Contributions to Hydrogeology 8. International Associations of Hydrogeologists, Kenilworth, pp 210–214

    Google Scholar 

  • Lerner DN (2002) Identifying and quantifying urban recharge: a review. Hydrogeol J 10(1):143–152

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Maliva RG (2019) Anthropogenic aquifer recharge. Springer, Cham

    Google Scholar 

  • Maliva RG, Missimer TM (2012) Arid lands water management. Springer, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • Massonnet D, Feigl KL (1998) Radar interferometry and its application to changes in the earth’s surface. Rev Geophys 36(4):441–500

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • McCool BC, Rahardianto A, Faria J, Kovac K, Lara D, Cohen Y (2010) Feasibility of reverse osmosis desalination of brackish agricultural drainage water in the San Joaquin Valley. Desalination 261(3):240–250

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • MDCDRER, MDWASD, & FDOD (2018). Septic systems vulnerable to sea level rise (November 2018). Miami-Dade County Department of Regulatory & Economic Resources, Miami-Dade County Water and Sewer Department & Florida Department of Health in Miami-Dade County

    Google Scholar 

  • Molseed AC, Hunt JR, Cowin MW (1987) Desalination of agricultural drainage return water. Part I: Operational experiences with conventional and nonconventional pretreatment methods. Desalination 61(3):249–262

    Google Scholar 

  • National Research Council (1991) Mitigation losses from land subsidence in the United States. National Academy Press, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Petheram C, Walker G, Grayson R, Thierfelder T, Zhang L (2002) Towards a framework for predicting impacts of land-use on recharge: 1. A review of recharge studies in Australia. Soil Res 40(3):397–417

    Google Scholar 

  • Rengasamy P (2006) World salinization with emphasis on Australia. J Exp Bot 57(5):1017–1023

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rushton KR, Al-Othman AAR (1994) Control of rising groundwater levels in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In: Groundwater problems in urban areas: proceedings of the international conference organized by the Institution of Civil Engineers and held in London, 2–3 June 1993, pp 299–309. Thomas Telford Publishing, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Scanlon BR, Keese KE, Flint AL, Flint LE, Gaye CB, Edmunds WM, Simmers I (2006) Global synthesis of groundwater recharge in semiarid and arid regions. Hydrol Process 20:3335–3379

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Scanlon BR, Reedy RC, Stonestrom DA, Prudic DE, Dennehy KF (2005) Impact of land use and land cover change on groundwater recharge and quality in the southwestern US. Glob Change Biol 11:1577–1593

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Sinclair WC (1982). Sinkhole development resulting from ground-water withdrawal in the Tampa area, Florida. U.S. Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigations, 81–50

    Google Scholar 

  • Sorour MH, Abulnour AG, Talaat HA (1992) Desalination of agricultural drainage water. Desalination 86(1):63–75

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Talaat HA, Ahmed SR (2007) Treatment of agricultural drainage water: technological schemes and financial indicators. Desalination 204(1–3):102–112

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • USDA (1998) Soil quality resource concerns: salinization. USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • USEPA (1990) Onsite wastewater treatment and disposal systems, design manual (EPA 625/1-80-012). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Water Program Operations, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • USEPA (1999a) Collection systems. O&M fact sheet trenchless sewer rehabilitation (EPA 832-F-99-032). Washington, DC: United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Water

    Google Scholar 

  • USEPA (1999b) Decentralized systems technology fact sheet mound systems (EPA 832-F 99-074). United States Environmental Protection Office of Water, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • USEPA (2001) Managing septic systems to prevent contamination of drinking water (EPA 816-F-01-021). United States Environmental Protection Office of Water, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • USEPA (n.d.) Types of septic systems. United States Environmental Protection Office of Water. https://www.epa.gov/septic/types-septic-systems. Accessed June 2, 2020

  • Van der Molen WH, Beltrán JM, Ochs WJ (2007) Guidelines and computer programs for the planning and design of land drainage systems. FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 62. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome

    Google Scholar 

  • Wakode HB, Baier K, Jha R, Azzam R (2018) Impact of urbanization on groundwater recharge and urban water balance for the city of Hyderabad, India. Int Soil Water Conserv Res 6(1):51–62

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wolf LEIF, Eiswirth M, Hotzl H (2006) Assessing sewer-groundwater interaction at the city scale based on individual sewer defects and marker species distributions. Environ Geol 49:849–857

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ye C, Yang Y, Tian F, Luo Y, Zhou Y (2015) Numerical analysis to determine the impact of land subsidence on high-speed railway routes in Beijing, China. Proc Int Assoc Hydrol Sci 372:493–497

    Google Scholar 

  • Zamfirescu F, Popa I, Danchiv A (2006) Gravitational drainage systems in urban areas: case study (GalaÅ£i town, Romania). Environ Geol 49(6):887–896

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Zipper SC, Soylu ME, Booth EG, Loheide SP (2015) Untangling the effects of shallow groundwater and soil texture as drivers of subfield-scale yield variability. Water Resour Res 51(8):6338–6358

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. WSP and Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, FL, USA

    Robert Maliva

Authors
  1. Robert Maliva
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Maliva, R. (2021). Groundwater Related Impacts of Climate Change on Infrastructure. In: Climate Change and Groundwater: Planning and Adaptations for a Changing and Uncertain Future. Springer Hydrogeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66813-6_8

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation