Extreme Events, Critical Infrastructures, Human Vulnerability and Strategic Planning: Emerging Research Issues

Abstract

The importance of critical infrastructures and strategic planning in the context of extreme events, climate change and urbanization has been underscored recently in international policy frameworks, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Sendai -HABITAT 2016). This paper outlines key research challenges in addressing the nexus between extreme weather events, critical infrastructure resilience, human vulnerability and strategic planning. Using a structured expert dialogue approach (particularly based on a roundtable discussion funded by the German National Science Foundation (DFG)), the paper outlines emerging research issues in the context of extreme events, critical infrastructures, human vulnerability and strategic planning, providing perspectives for inter-and transdisciplinary research on this important nexus. The main contribution of the paper is a compilation of identified research gaps and needs from an interdisciplinary perspective including the lack of integration across subjects and mismatches between different concepts and schools of thought.

Towards Resilient Vital Infrastructure Systems: Challenges, Opportunities, and Future Research Agenda

“…Infrastructures are highly networked and inter-connected systems (Markolf et al, 2018) with cascading effects of failures within different systems, implying that a disruptive event in one infrastructure can lead to further consequences in other infrastructures (Birkmann et al, 2017;Hickford et al, 2018). According to Markolf et al (2018), this inter-connection can be either physical (output of one system is the input required for other systems, such as electricity needed for transportation and water related infrastructures), or geographical, referring to a shared common location for a set of infrastructure systems (e.g., underground pipelines and electric transmission cables).…”

“…The incorporation of new technologies and innovative solutions in designing infrastructures may contribute to a better understanding of the interconnections amongst different vital infrastructures, promoting the resilience at the time of shocks and disruptions. However, this is not always the case; new technologies may also increase interdependency between infrastructures (Birkmann et al, 2017;Hickford et al, 2018) leading to considerable service interruptions (e.g., high dependency of energy and transport systems on information technology). Designing infrastructure systems with much reliance on the technological advances may result in over-estimation of the protection level and underestimation of the variability of the system to changes, causing over-confidence in the robustness of systems (Markolf et al, 2018).…”

“…Redundancy creation is one of the key measures in resilience thinking (Hoekstra et al, 2018), aiming to increase resilience of the infrastructure systems. Because of the redundancy and spare management, a system is not failed due to the component failure (Ruijters and Stoelinga, 2015), making a redundant system more flexible to disruptions (Birkmann et al, 2017). However, redundancy creation does not necessarily mean that the key components of the infrastructure systems are doubled or tripled, since it can be more effective to create ringed or meshed networks (Hallegatte et al, 2019).…”

“…De-centralization and detaching physical components of a networked infrastructure is another way of creating resilience for these systems. This measure is often applicable for power supply, thanks to the widespread introduction of renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and biomass (Birkmann et al, 2017). De-centralization is also a solution to promote resilience of the water infrastructures referring to small and medium-sized systems (e.g., wastewater recycling, and rainwater harvesting infrastructure), which rely on locally available water sources (Leigh and Lee, 2019).…”

Enhancing urban and infrastructure resilience

“…However, scholars report an 'implementation gap' between resilience as a policy objective and resilience as manifested in the implementation of risk management and urban planning practices (Coaffee and Clarke, 2015;Coaffee and Lee, 2016;Coaffee et al, 2018;Wagenaar and Wilkinson, 2015;Wilkinson, 2012)1. In addition, Birkmann et al (2016) argue that the nexus between urban resilience and infrastructures has so far been largely neglected by academic literature. The research described in this thesis takes an institutional perspective on the implementation gap, contributing to the emerging literature on the challenges of enhancing urban resilience and with a particular focus on infrastructure systems.…”