Short-term natural disaster impacts on transportation infrastructure: a systematic review

Due to aging infrastructure, high utilization rates, and unsuited designs for the extreme weather conditions brought on by global warming, transportation infrastructure (TI) has become increasingly vulnerable to numerous short-term natural disasters. While existing reviews have addressed a single type of disaster’s impacts, road network vulnerability under short-term disasters, and TI performance methods individually, a comprehensive review synthesizing research methods of short-term natural disasters and their impacts on TI is lacking. To fill the gap, this study systematically reviewed the TI impacts subjected to short-term natural disasters, focusing on the capability and applicability of methods used in these studies. Our study identified five prevailing methods: simulation, GIS & its combined methods, mathematical models & simulations, mixed methods, and mathematical models. Through comparative analysis across research objectives, hazard scenarios, impact types, and modeling mechanisms, we found that: studies predominantly focus on system adaptation and disruption recognition over resource allocation, emphasize single hazard events (particularly earthquakes) over multiple hazards scenarios, address direct impacts rather than indirect effects, and relies heavily on gray-box modeling approaches. Our findings suggest future research directions: multi-objective optimization under resource constraints, multi-hazard impact assessment across disaster phases, indirect effect quantification, and integration of emerging technologies for enhanced disaster resilience of TI.