Climate-Resilient Foundation Design for Coastal Infrastructure Under Rising Groundwater Conditions: A Review

Abstract

Background: Sea-level rise poses not only a threat to coastal infrastructure through surface inundation, but also through coastal groundwater table rise, which occurs slowly, over a long period of time, and is difficult to see, before it even reaches the surface. Methods: The methods for this review involve a synthesis of the mechanisms of coastal groundwater rise, the structural and geotechnical implications, and the new strategies in foundation design and site characterisation based on peer-reviewed literature (2021–2025) from journals in Earth and environmental science, geotechnical engineering literature, and civil engineering case studies. Results: Rising groundwater causes decrease in unsaturated buffer above foundations, enhances buoyant uplift, raises pore pressure, and speeds up chlorides-induced corrosion of substructure concrete and buried steel. Data from the USA, the Netherlands and the city of Lagos, Nigeria, demonstrates that these forces exacerbate low-lying deltaic cities' experience of land subsidence. A climate resilient foundation design framework is built on the foundation of the integrated borehole-cone penetration test (CPT) characterisation, new liquefaction and bearing-capacity correlations, ground improvement, and probabilistic uncertainty-aware design. Conclusion: Coastal foundation engineering needs to move beyond the precepts of the past, relying on water-table assumptions, to one based on monitoring and knowledge of uncertainty, and prepared to face decades of groundwater rise.