Findings of NAVFAC/ASCE Workshops on Resilience of Navy Waterfront Facilities in a Changing Climate

Summary of the Discussion Session Content and Duration: Worldwide coastal communities, ports, and navy installations/joint bases with significant critical infrastructure are increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather events due to climate change. These extreme events have caused tremendous loss of life, property damage, and decrease on mission readiness for port authorities and military operations. Therefore, it is critical to integrate resilience planning and climate adaptation into master planning and consider local and regional climate effects into updates of guidance documents, codes, and standards.

The Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center (NAVFAC EXWC), in partnership with the American Society of Civil Engineers Coasts, Oceans, Ports, and Rivers Institute (ASCE COPRI) conducted a series of two-day workshops with worldwide resilience experts. Workshop, Part I: Extreme Wind Speeds, Sea Level Rise, and Flood Loading on Waterfront Facilities was conducted at the U.S. Naval Academy on 19-20 September 2023. The second Workshop, Part II: Resilience of Navy Waterfront Facilities was conducted at ASCE Headquarters in Reston, VA on 23-24 April 2024. Both workshops explored using performance-based and climate-sensitive resilience planning for the future. The workshops have yielded significant findings, which are now being considered for updating DoD resilience planning guidance, UFCs for design of waterfront facilities, and other national and international codes and standards.

The workshops brought together approximately 200 engineering and coastal resilience experts and attendees seeking to advance infrastructure resilience in addressing extreme events (flood, wind, and tsunamis) due to climate change. This collaboration identified research needs and how to improve design standards, UFCs, and best practices in structural safety design and evaluation as well as infrastructure resilience planning of Navy Waterfront Facilities and other critical waterfront facilities in a changing climate.
The objectives of this open discussion session will be to present an overview of the significant findings of the workshop (Parts I and II) from the experts who participated in the Workshop. Findings include discussions of 1) performance-based methodologies for resilient design of waterfront facilities; 2) upper and lower bounds of design loads due to extreme wind, sea level rise (SLR), and flooding; 3) available datasets and tools for resilience planning and climate adaptation; 4) best practices through case studies and 5) recommendations for potential updates to UFCs and other national codes and standards.

Target Audience for the Discussion Session: The target audience for this paper is operations and policy decision makers responsible for making performance-based resilience infrastructure investments. Operational managers responsible for managing the impacts of extreme climate change on their infrastructure to maintain continuity of operations such as port authorities and worldwide NAVFAC installations will benefit from this discussion session.

Description of the Benefit of the Discussion Session to Conference Attendees: This discussion panel provides a unique opportunity for the industry to understand how extreme climate change impacts the Navy and port authority’s resilience in infrastructure master planning. Also, insights into how these expert and consensus-driven updates are going to be incorporated into the Navy’s UFC and on how these updates impact continuity of operations and infrastructure development projects.

The innovation is that the resilience workshops explored using performance-based and climate-sensitive resilience planning for the future. The outcomes of this workshop (Parts I and II) are being considered for updates to DoD resilience planning guidance, UFCs for design of waterfront facilities, and other national and international codes and standards.