Water in a world in transition: the new SOCOTEC White Paper

When water puts pressure on the active ingredients

Port and river infrastructures, dikes, dams, networks, treatment plants and energy facilities have a direct relationship with water, whether for its collection, channelling, storage, discharge or protection against it.

Today, this relationship is increasingly demanding. Climate change increases hydrological variability, intensifies certain extreme phenomena and generates greater uncertainty in the conditions under which infrastructures must be designed, operated and adapted. Water can no longer be considered a mere contextual factor. It has become a structural parameter for the sustainability of assets, the security of territories and the proper functioning of essential services.

Bridges, docks, ports, dikes, dams, and coastal or containment structures are subject to water-related stresses that can affect their stability, durability, and, in some cases, safety.

Water acts on structures through multiple mechanisms. It infiltrates, erodes, undermines, weakens soils, accelerates corrosion and subjects materials to repeated stresses. Some phenomena are slow and progressive, while others occur more abruptly, such as during floods, submersions or intense episodes of runoff.

Individually, these mechanisms are not new. What has changed today is its intensity, frequency and combination, in a context marked by rising sea levels, greater variability in flows and the increase in extreme events. You can find detailed information on these topics, and many other water-related issues, in the ebook below.