Climate change poses escalating risks to bridge infrastructure, with short-term hazards–such as flash floods, scour, snowfall, wildfires and windstorms–interacting with long-term stressors like corrosion and thermal effects to compromise safety and functionality. The paper synthesises interdisciplinary research on these challenges, and highlights actionable adaptation strategies to enhance resilience at both asset and network levels. Two critical yet often overlooked dimensions in resilience-based bridge management are emphasised: the unique challenges of adapting heritage bridges, and the integration of human-centered approaches. These dimensions, supported by emerging digital technologies such as digital twins, IoT-enabled monitoring and AI-driven predictive tools, contribute to both the resilience and social sustainability of bridge infrastructure. By integrating technical, cultural and social considerations, the paper provides a foundational perspective for rethinking current design, preservation and maintenance practices, and for advancing infrastructure that is not only resilient to physical stressors but also socially sustainable amid accelerating climate challenges.

This paper presents the main findings of the JRC report “Impact of climate change on the corrosion of the European reinforced concrete building stock” [1]. It evaluates the climate change-induced carbonation in reinforced concrete buildings in the EU Member States up to year 2100 and the time for corrosion onset and the repair costs under moderate and extreme CO2 emissions scenarios. The results indicate that, without climate change, natural aging of buildings would not lead to corrosion by 2100, as the carbonation depth would remain smaller than the concrete cover depth. However, if more severe climate change scenarios are considered, corresponding to the case when the emissions targets are not met, specifically the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C, the potential economic costs and welfare losses in some EU countries could be substantial. Climate change-induced carbonation is expected to affect the 20th-century building stock, but not the recently constructed buildings meeting modern European standards for concrete cover durability. Adaptation measures for the building stock are proposed.

One major issue when considering the effects of climate change is to understand, qualify and quantify how natural hazards and the changing climate will likely impact infrastructure assets and services as it strongly depends on current and future climate variability, location, asset design life, function and condition. So far, there is no well-defined and agreed performance indicator that isolates the effects of climate change for structures. Rather, one can mention some key considerations on how climate change may produce changes of vulnerability due to physical and chemical actions affecting structural durability or changes of the exposure in terms of intensity/frequency of extreme events. This paper considers these two aspects and associated challenges, considering some recent activities of members of the IABSE TG6.1.