Framing Climate Change Implications for Infrastructures and Urban Systems - Climate Change and Infrastructure, Urban Systems, and Vulnerabilities - page 37

handle the new capacity demands of increased population and climate initiated stress-
ors (Curtis and Schneider, 2011). Many adaptation strategies examined by interdepen-
dency modeling call for additional demand or loads to be handled by alternative paths
which are poorly sized or maintained in order to accept the emergency demands placed
upon the system. This was a contributing factor to the San Diego blackout where de-
mand for alternative power flows into Southern California were unavailable because of
capacity limitations during extreme heat (Keegan, et al., 2011).
4) CHARACTERISTICS OF RESILIENT CONNECTED
INFRASTRUCTURES AND URBAN SYSTEMS
Related to such risk management is the concept of climate-resilient pathways (SREX,
2012, IPCC Working Group II, Fifth Assessment Report, Chapter 20, forthcoming). Re-
silience has emerged into public discourse in the past decade from research literatures
on ecosystem stress and response and on emergency preparedness as a positive coun-
terpoint to vulnerability: where vulnerability communicates threat, resilience commu-
nicates an ability to respond to threats (a theme in several professional communities for
decades: e.g., NAE, 1988).
Resilience is defined as the capacity to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and re-
cover from significant disruptions (Wilbanks and Kates, 2010); and related literatures
associate resilience with such system characteristics as flexibility and redundancy, both
physically and institutionally, which in turn are associated with such business concerns
as continuity of operations.
While resilience is frequently considered in the context of a sudden occurrence, such
as an earthquake or a terrorist event, its consideration in the context of potential climate
change impacts on infrastructure is equally salient. It is important to take actions to pre-
vent or limit the negative effects of climate change, but it is equally important to make
plans to enhance the resilience of the Nation's infrastructure to climate change and its
potential negative impacts. For instance, decision-makers can consider the following
factors when assessing climate change risks to infrastructure systems- including physi-
cal, environmental, economic and social - and how to configure infrastructure systems
so as to improve resiliency.
• Climate change effects on weather-related phenomena: how will the frequency and
intensity of flooding, tornadoes, droughts, hurricanes, extreme temperature
events, and other weather-related phenomena change?
• Weather-related phenomena impacts on infrastructure systems: how will the changes
in weather-related phenomena impact the function of infrastructures? For
example, drought frequency increases may strain water and agriculture systems,
greater intensity hurricanes may physically destroy infrastructure systems, and
sea level increases may even render some systems inoperable and unable to be
repaired.
• Regional changes in supply and demand for infrastructure systems services: while
climate change may directly impact demand for infrastructure services (e.g.,
higher extreme temperatures may increase demand for electric power),
secondary impacts due to population migration and other phenomena should be