Environmental Engineering Reference
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can be referred to as ―shock-absorption‖. For example, the existence of a
flexible, multi-skilled labour force could act as an instrument of shock
absorption, as negative external demand shocks affecting a particular sector of
economic activity can be relatively easily met by shifting resources to another
sector enjoying stronger demand.
The issue of resilience building is important for small states in view of the
fact that such states tend to be inherently economically vulnerable, as already
explained. An analogy relating to an attack of influenza virus may help explain
the two senses in which the term ―resilience‖ is used. A person exposed to the
virus may (a) get infected but recovers quickly; and/or (b) withstand the effect
of the virus, possibly by being immunized, it is important to distinguish
between vulnerability considerations and resilience factors. For example, some
studies argue that small economic size presents an economic advantage on the
basis of simple correlations between small size and indicators of economic
performance, such as GDP growth and GDP per capita. A proper analysis of
the relationship between size of countries and economic performance should
factor in control variables, such as good economic governance. It is suggested
that the relatively good performance of some small states is certainly not due
to small size, but is attributed to nurtured economic resilience. Consideration
of economic resilience building also conveys the message that small
vulnerable states should not be complacent in the face of their economic
vulnerability, but could and should adopt policy measures to enable them to
improve their ability to cope with or bounce back from external shocks.
1.5. R ESILIENCE E NGINEERING
Safety is a system property, encompassing components, subsystems,
software, organizations, human behavior, and their interactions. Recent major
mishaps and case studies have identified the critical need for organizations to
re-tool their engineering processes and capabilities to address human and
organizational risk factors [29] .Assessment of case studies and strategic
analyses have identified the need to monitor and manage risk continuously
throughout the life cycle of a program to keep safety in balance with high
pressure to achieve production and efficiency goals.
Resilience Engineering is the new field which uses the insights from
research on failures in complex systems, organizational contributors to risk,
and human performance to develop engineering practices including measures
of sources of resilience, decision support for balancing production/safety
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