The Impact of Climate Change on Urban Infrastructure: A Comprehensive Study on Resilient Civil Engineering Design, Adaptation Strategies, and Sustainable Development

Abstract

Climate change is becoming more and more unstable in terms of urban infrastructure, as floods are becoming one of the most disruptive risks. This paper explores how urban systems are affected by climate change using a mixed-method design, which combines long-term data on floods with comparative case studies. Quantitative data were used to reveal time and space trends of vulnerability using the India Flood Inventory-Impacts (1967- 2023), and qualitative data were informed by the 2015 Chennai floods and the 2016 Copenhagen Cloudburst Management Plan. The analysis of the dataset showed that the frequency of floods dramatically increased, and nowadays there are more than 2,200 floods every year, whereas in the 1960s, there were fewer than 50. District-level analysis identified Patna, Murshidabad, and Thane to be the most susceptible to floods, with high values of the District Flood Susceptibility Index (DFSI) to indicate repetition of infrastructure strains. Correlation analysis showed that higher percentages of flooded areas are linked to higher human deaths, which is a systemic vulnerability of urban drainage and transport systems. The case studies highlighted divergent paths: Chennai was the illustration of failure because of poor planning and uncontrolled growth, whereas Copenhagen was the example of the advantages of the proactive hybrid solutions that are green and grey. These results indicate that resilient civil engineering should be developed in the direction of adaptive, sustainable, and integrative designs. The paper finds that the connection between the large-scale flood data and case-based strategies can inform policymakers and engineers on how to proceed with creating climate-resilient and sustainable urban development.