Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
With regard to the scale, the energy system can be local, regional, state or
global. Each of these scales will lead to different implications reflecting
specific characteristics to be as the attribute for its definition.
The energy system domain will quantify energy demand in every energy
system scale. This will imply the specification of energy consumption in
different forms needed by society within the defined energy system.
The resilience of a system relates to the magnitude of disturbance required
to fundamentally disrupt the system causing a dramatic shift to another state of
the system, controlled by a different set of processes. When resilience is lost or
significantly decreased, a system is at high risk of shifting into a qualitatively
different state. The new state of the system may be undesirable. Restoring a
system to it's previous state can be complex, expensive, and sometimes even
impossible. Research suggests that to restore some systems to their previous
state requires a return to conditions well before the point of collapse.
The energy system resilience refers to the capacity of an energy system to
withstand perturbations from e.g. climatic, economic, technological and social
causes and to rebuild and renew it afterwards [5]. Loss of resilience can cause
loss of valuable energy system services, and may even lead to rapid transitions
or shifts into qualitatively different situations and configurations, described for
e.g. people, ecosystems, knowledge systems, or whole cultures. In general
terms, the vulnerability of a system is assessed according to the concept of
resilience, developed in the mathematics of non-linear differential equations.
According to this frame, the opposite to the vulnerability of a system is its
stability, its resilience, defined specifically as an attribute of a system. The
system is like a net; it consists of a great number of nots, which are
interlinked.
Resilience provides a new framework for analyzing economic, ecological,
technological and social systems in a changing world facing many
uncertainties and challenges. It represents an area of explorative research
under rapid development with major policy implications for sustainable
development.
Sometimes change is gradual and things move forward in roughly
continuous and predictable ways. In other times, change is sudden,
disorganized and turbulent reflected by climate impacts, earth system science
challenges and vulnerable regions. Evidence points out to a situation where
periods of such abrupt changes are likely to increase in frequency and
magnitude [6].
