A study of adaptation strategies for road embankments built on permafrost affected by climate change

Road embankments in Northern Canada experience lateral spreading and settlements that result in longitudinal cracking of the road surface. Highways and road embankments can degrade permafrost because their construction and use increase the thermal regime beneath the embankments. In addition, the climate warming trend could potentially magnify this problem. When thawed, the discontinuous permafrost beneath the roads results in differential settlements lateral spreading and cracks, which contribute to a concern of public safety.; A study was carried out to asses the impact of climate change on road embankments over degrading permafrost. The model was calibrated using field measurements of ground temperatures for a three-year monitoring period. With a realistic prediction of ground thermal regime, the model was used as the basis for further assessing the impacts of climate change to the ground thermal regime in the permafrost beneath road embankments for a fifty-year period. Based on the simulated impact of climate change to the permafrost, an idealized stress-deformation scenario was determined to evaluate the deformation and stability of embankments with and without mitigation measures. The Thesis will discuss the results of the evaluation of adaptation strategies using selected soil/ground improvement techniques to mitigate the impacts of climate warming to road embankments on permafrost.