Infrastructures as Socio-Eco-Technical Systems: Five Considerations for Interdisciplinary Dialogue

Grabowski, Zbigniew R.; Matsler, A. Marissa; Thiel, Cassandra L.; McPhillips, Lauren; Hum, Richard; Bradshaw, Amanda; Miller, Thaddeus R.; Redman, Charles L.

doi:10.1061/(asce)is.1943-555x.0000383

Cited by 71 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…Stokols () also emphasizes the importance of interconnections, as in this paper, though the bounding of those elements may differ. Other existing literature on SETS primarily focus on definitions and conceptual framing (Grabowski et al, ; Grimm et al, ; Hale et al, ; Krumme, ; McPhearson et al, ; Ramaswami et al, ) or discuss the three components independently. Similar to analysis by Tellman et al (), we expand on existing SETS literature by directly applying the SETS lens to infrastructure development and management, particularly in relation to identifying maladaptive lock‐in processes and establishing approaches to help infrastructure adapt to the effects of extreme events.…”

Section: Sets Characteristics and Challenges For Infrastructure Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ecological domain encompasses natural resources, pollution and environmental degradation, ecological structures, ecological functions, ecological behaviors, and weather/climate effects (Grabowski et al, ). The technological domain includes physical and cyber infrastructure, as well as any supporting knowledge systems, software, and other forms of decision‐support (Grabowski et al, ). In agreement with Stokols (), we view virtual and cyber‐based features to be of increasing influence and importance within the technological domain and beyond.…”

Section: Sets Characteristics and Challenges For Infrastructure Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Overview of social, ecological, and technological components and interactions of infrastructure systems. Adapted fromDepietri & McPhearson (2017),Grabowski et al (2017),Labi (2014), andRubin (2001).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Interdependent Infrastructure as Linked Social, Ecological, and Technological Systems (SETSs) to Address Lock‐in and Enhance Resilience

et al. 2018

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Traditional infrastructure adaptation to extreme weather events (and now climate change) has typically been techno‐centric and heavily grounded in robustness—the capacity to prevent or minimize disruptions via a risk‐based approach that emphasizes control, armoring, and strengthening (e.g., raising the height of levees). However, climate and nonclimate challenges facing infrastructure are not purely technological. Ecological and social systems also warrant consideration to manage issues of overconfidence, inflexibility, interdependence, and resource utilization—among others. As a result, techno‐centric adaptation strategies can result in unwanted tradeoffs, unintended consequences, and underaddressed vulnerabilities. Techno‐centric strategies that lock‐in today's infrastructure systems to vulnerable future design, management, and regulatory practices may be particularly problematic by exacerbating these ecological and social issues rather than ameliorating them. Given these challenges, we develop a conceptual model and infrastructure adaptation case studies to argue the following: (1) infrastructure systems are not simply technological and should be understood as complex and interconnected social, ecological, and technological systems (SETSs); (2) infrastructure challenges, like lock‐in, stem from SETS interactions that are often overlooked and underappreciated; (3) framing infrastructure with a SETS lens can help identify and prevent maladaptive issues like lock‐in; and (4) a SETS lens can also highlight effective infrastructure adaptation strategies that may not traditionally be considered. Ultimately, we find that treating infrastructure as SETS shows promise for increasing the adaptive capacity of infrastructure systems by highlighting how lock‐in and vulnerabilities evolve and how multidisciplinary strategies can be deployed to address these challenges by broadening the options for adaptation.

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Section: Sets Characteristics and Challenges For Infrastructure Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Sets Characteristics and Challenges For Infrastructure Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interdependent Infrastructure as Linked Social, Ecological, and Technological Systems (SETSs) to Address Lock‐in and Enhance Resilience

et al. 2018

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“…Can industrial ecology help transition human systems from complicated to complex, to address the accelerating and uncertain conditions that include climate and other variables such as emerging and disruptive technologies, political and cultural change, service demand changes? And how should industrial ecology integrate with emerging fields of climate study such as decision‐making under deep uncertainty, robust decision‐making, safe‐to‐fail, and social–ecological–technological solution framing (Dittrich, Wreford, & Moran, 2016; Grabowski et al., 2017; Kim, Chester, Eisenberg, & Redman, 2019; Shortridge & Camp, 2019; Walker, Lempert, & Kwakkel, 2013)? These key areas remain unexplored and are critical to addressing the emerging dynamics inherent in the Anthropocene.…”

Section: Path Forwardmentioning

confidence: 99%

Industrial ecology in support of climate change adaptation

Chester

2020

J of Industrial Ecology

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Industrial ecology in support of climate change adaptation"This special issue was developed to advance thinking on how industrial ecology can support climate adaptation. The articles show ways in which established industrial ecology approaches can shift from the mitigation to adaptation realms." TOWARD CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCEThere appears to have been a recent tipping of the scales in terms of how we discuss climate change. Whereas in the past the conversation seemed to largely focus on greenhouse gas mitigation, recently climate adaptation has become a major part of the discussion (Wang, Zhao, & Wang, 2018). Making sense of climate adaptation is now common discourse among cities, infrastructure agencies, private industry, and the military. What caused the increased emphasis on climate adaptation is an important question. Global climate is changing rapidly compared to natural variation that has occurred throughout Earth's history, and extreme events such as hurricanes, flooding, wildfires, and heatwaves appear to be exacerbated by a warming world (USGCRP, 2018). Or maybe it is pessimism about our inability to quickly and significantly decrease greenhouse gas emissions, despite decades of research showing us how decreases can happen (Ge, Lebling, Levin, & Friedrich, 2019). Whatever the cause, what is clear is that the global community is rightfully trying to figure out how climate impacts, big or small, should be prepared for, and what they mean for the future of the planet.As the scale, scope and complexity of climate change becomes clearer, concepts around resilience have also come to the forefront of discourse.Whether climate adaptation and resilience are synonymous, or partially overlapping, remains a subject of debate (Nelson, 2011). Resilience principles have been studied for many topics beyond climate adaptation and often have a commonality of capabilities for adaptive capacity and transformation under foreseen and unforeseen conditions (Béné et al., 2018;Meerow, Newell, & Stults, 2016;Woods, 2017). Adaptive capacity is a function of many variables related to sociological, ecological, and technological systems and the relationships between those systems. Resilience frameworks describe a system's ability to thrive when confronted by hazards that it was designed to address and, maybe more importantly, hazards that were not considered (Woods, 2017). The current interest in climate adaptation and resilience is likely not coincidental and transcends climate change concerns. Resilience is becoming a popular concept in many fields at a time when the acceleration and uncertainty of human and natural systems is growing, producing complexities that we are just beginning to recognize (

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“…Thus, researchers can be useful for improving dam decision‐making by combining state and federal level economic analyses (Whitelaw & MacMullan, ), with research on owner level considerations and experiences of dam removal and rehabilitation (Fox, Magilligan, & Sneddon, ). Given the large interest in streamlining hydropower licensing processes and adding significant nonfederally owned hydroelectric capacity in the United States (Bracmort, Vann, & Stern, ), combined with the infrastructural turn of redeveloping large water infrastructure systems in the United States in the face of climate change (Perry & Praskievicz, ), the evolution of the function of dams within complex infrastructure systems remains a pressing research need (Grabowski et al, ).…”

Section: Opportunities For Improving Dam Removal Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Fracturing dams, fractured data: Empirical trends and characteristics of existing and removed dams in the United States

Grabowski

Chang

Granek

2018

River Research & Apps

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Dam removals in the United States continue to accelerate in pace and scope, but no national analyses have examined how removed dams compare with existing dam stock. Here, we review and cost savings over present stated dam rehabilitation needs. Structural characteristics and ages of documented removals are not representative of existing dams, with privately owned hydroelectric dams subject to public oversight and water supply dams the most disproportionately removed. We conclude that dam removal science would benefit from the creation of an interdisciplinary framework for studying dams as environmental, social, and technological interventions, facilitated by transparent datasets around dams and removals and reflexive research approaches that combine statistical approaches with place-based analyses.

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Infrastructures as Socio-Eco-Technical Systems: Five Considerations for Interdisciplinary Dialogue

Cited by 71 publications

References 77 publications

Interdependent Infrastructure as Linked Social, Ecological, and Technological Systems (SETSs) to Address Lock‐in and Enhance Resilience

Interdependent Infrastructure as Linked Social, Ecological, and Technological Systems (SETSs) to Address Lock‐in and Enhance Resilience

Industrial ecology in support of climate change adaptation

Fracturing dams, fractured data: Empirical trends and characteristics of existing and removed dams in the United States

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