Looking across Infrastructure’s Lifecycle: Understanding Challenges to Provide Services in Alaska

The provision of critical infrastructure systems (CISs) in Alaska is uniquely challenging due to the extreme climate, workforce limitations, and remoteness of communities. While many of these challenges span lifecycle phases and CISs, most literature examines systems in isolation and without considering the entire project lifecycle. This thesis addresses this gap by analyzing CIS challenges throughout the planning, design, construction, use, and disposal phases. Focusing on six key infrastructure sectors—transportation, water and wastewater, solid waste, energy, communication, and public health, this work is based on insights from 19 semi-structured interviews with 22 stakeholders involved in providing CISs in Alaska. A hybrid qualitative approach combining deductive and inductive techniques was used to identify emergent themes. The findings reveal significant obstacles that impact infrastructure functionality, resilience, and service delivery in Alaska. High construction and maintenance costs, limited funding, and complex grant processes make infrastructure management difficult. In addition, many CISs face a shortage of skilled labor, particularly in remote areas, while coordination problems between agencies and stakeholders slow down decision making throughout the project lifecycle. Findings highlight that many challenges are common across systems, suggesting that lessons from one CIS can inform the management of other systems.