Michael Martello

• Doctor of Philosophy
• US Army Corps of Engineers

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Blue Line, a rail transit route serving communities in Greater Boston, is presently exposed to coastal flood risk and faces existential threats from future sea-level rise (SLR). Ensuring its resilience will require investments in climate adaptation. Planning such investments typically involves a...

Climate change and sea‐level rise (SLR) are expected to increase the frequency and intensity of coastal flood events, posing risks to coastal communities and infrastructure. While regional climate adaptation investments can provide substantive flood protection, existing plans often neglect uncertainty in future climate conditions and adaptation per...

Sea level rise (SLR) and associated increases in the frequency and intensity of coastal flooding pose a significant threat to coastal communities and the critical infrastructure upon which they rely. In coastal cities, rail transit systems are particularly sensitive to such increases in coastal flood exposure. Transit agencies, infrastructure manag...

Future sea level rise (SLR) and associated increases in the frequency and intensity of coastal flooding poses significant threats to coastal communities and transit systems. Yet current literature and practice lack methods for estimating flood damage costs to transit systems. Here, we construct an event-specific flood damage cost estimation framewo...

Climate change, sea-level rise, and associated increases in climate-related risks pose significant threats to transportation infrastructure in coastal cities. To improve resilience of the transportation infrastructure it is necessary to understand projected future climate extremes, inherent system characteristics, and relationships to local and reg...

Estimates of flood‐related damages and costs often rely on asset‐specific depth‐damage curves that characterize the fragility of a given asset. To date, there are very few depth‐damage curves that are potentially applicable to rail rapid transit infrastructure, and no studies attempt to construct these relationships specifically these asset classes...

Sea level rise (SLR) poses increasing flood risks to coastal cities and infrastructure. We propose a general framework of engineering resilience for infrastructure systems in the context of climate change and illustrate its application for the assessment of SLR impacts on the rail rapid transit network in Boston. Within this framework, projected co...

Climate change and projected rises in sea level will pose increasing flood risks to coastal cities and infrastructure. This thesis proposes a general framework of engineering resilience for infrastructure systems in the context of climate change and illustrates its application for the rail rapid transit network in Boston. Within this framework, pro...