Redesigning Resilient Infrastructure Research

Seager, Thomas P.; Clark, Susan Spierre; Eisenberg, Daniel A.; Thomas, John E.; Hinrichs, Margaret M.; Kofron, Ryan; Jensen, Camilla Nørgaard; McBurnett, Lauren R.; Snell, Marcus; Alderson, David

doi:10.1007/978-94-024-1123-2_3

Cited by 22 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…These control efforts are highly techno‐centric in that they rely on the installation or upgrading of physical infrastructure components (e.g., pumps and culverts) as opposed to more ecologically based efforts like bioswales, constructed wetlands, or living shorelines that use vegetation or a mix of green and gray infrastructure to provide necessary services (Casal‐Campos et al, ; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, ; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [U.S. EPA], ; U.S. EPA, ; Wang et al, ). They also tend to emphasize strengthening and armoring infrastructure—an approach that fits best under the robustness regime of resilience, where traditional risk analysis is used to determine the acceptable likelihood and magnitude of an event to which infrastructure are expected to withstand (Kim et al, ; Park et al, ; Seager et al, ; Woods, ). For example, levees and stormwater management systems are often designed to withstand the impacts from a storm that has a magnitude equivalent to a 1% chance of occurring in any given year—also known as a 100‐year storm event.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Robustness cannot simply become synonymous with resilience. Instead, emphasis should be placed on increasing the ability of our infrastructure systems to move across the following different resilience regimes as dictated by varying internal and external conditions (Chester & Allenby, ; Seager et al, ; Woods, ): Rebound—the ability of damaged/degraded systems to return to predisruption conditions Robustness—the capacity to prevent or minimize disruptions via a risk‐based approach and emphasis on control and strengthening Graceful extensibility—the ability to improvise solutions and extend system performance to mitigate the consequences of surprising or sudden events Sustained adaptability—the long‐term ability to transform and balance system conditions in response to constantly evolving external circumstances …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Environmental Protection Agency [U.S. EPA], 2017a; U.S. EPA, 2017b; Wang et al, 2013). They also tend to emphasize strengthening and armoring infrastructure-an approach that fits best under the robustness regime of resilience, where traditional risk analysis is used to determine the acceptable likelihood and magnitude of an event to which infrastructure are expected to withstand (Kim et al, 2017;Park et al, 2013;Seager et al, 2017;Woods, 2015). For example, levees and stormwater management systems are often designed to withstand the impacts from a storm that has a magnitude equivalent to a 1% chance of occurring in any given year-also known as a 100-year storm event.…”

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confidence: 99%

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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: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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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

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“…Several significant technical challenges must be overcome (Seager et al ). One of the most obvious ones is resolving a universally acceptable definition, or set of definitions, of “resilience” in the context of environmental impact assessment.…”

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confidence: 99%

The need for resilience in environmental impact assessment

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et al. 2017

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

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In search of network resilience: An optimization‐based view

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Fifty years of research in Networks coincides with 50 years of advances in resilience theory and applications. The purpose of this review is to identify how these two technical communities influenced each other in the past and can bolster each other in the future. Advances in resilience theory show that there are at least four ways networks demonstrate resilience: robustness, rebound, extensibility, and adaptability. Research published in Networks and by the broader network optimization community has focused primarily on technical methods for robustness and rebound. We review this literature to organize seminal problems and papers on the ability of networks to manage increasing stressors and return to normal activities after a stressful event. In contrast, the Networks community has made less progress addressing issues for network extensibility and adaptability. Extensibility refers to the ability to stretch current operations to surprising situations and adaptability refers to the ability to sustain operations into the future. We discuss ways to harness existing network optimization methods to study these forms of resilience and outline their limitations. We conclude by providing a research agenda that ensures the Networks community remains central to future advances in resilience while being pragmatic about the limitations of network optimization for achieving this task.

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Redesigning Resilient Infrastructure Research

Cited by 22 publications

References 65 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

The need for resilience in environmental impact assessment

In search of network resilience: An optimization‐based view

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