This blog takes a close look at the wicked problem of infrastructure resilience, contemplates key rights and responsibilities for government, business, and individuals in sustaining full access to life-critical goods throughout longer lasting disaster outcomes.
Climate Calamities and the Ripple Effect
The politics of all this are wrapped up in it: deadly storms like ‘Boris’ so easily show us how a climate related failure can cascade through critical infrastructure. If it floods power substations, scours pylons and fails embankments, the result is widespread disruption: from sewage pumping stations stalling to trains and trams not running.
In the UK this ripple effect could be described as exacerbated fragility — we know that from previous experiences, such as the summer floods in 2007 in Gloucestershire: 350,000 people were without mains water for more than two weeks and 42,000 without power. It has happened in 2013and, most recently, this week: evidence of how more interconnected systems across the world are increasingly becoming exposed to the ravages of extreme weather.
Bio Whose Job is it to be Resilient: Infrastructure or Human Systems?
Protecting crucial infrastructure can be a multifaceted business with stakeholders from all fronts. Where individual projects can undertake responsibility for their homes and private enterprises are themselves responsible for their mode of operations, the resilience plans for public services and utilities in areas such as energy or water supply is set by regulators such as Ofgem and Ofwat.
But the catch is that these regulators do not have minimum standards for infrastructure resilience and also cannot levy penalties for failures. Instead, national resilience planning is led by the government (Cabinet Office) and operates with a number of departments and agencies responsible for specific risk areas.
Advisory bodies for climate change and infrastructure provide recommendations, but have no power to compel. The result is a tangle of organizations and very little accountability — a recipe for uncertainty about the future of our infrastructure.
Conclusion
Our infrastructure will be put to the test by the longer and increasingly severe cycles of climate change. Society, however it chooses to resolve the conflict—whether by accepting more frequent failures and some reduction in our standard of living, heavily investing in bringing all essential systems up to date or directly empowering communities to become more self-sufficient—cannot continue on its current course. The decisions they make in the next few years will determine what life is like for hundreds of millions, and it must be remembered that universities, companies and people need to act now if we are to guarantee the resources that have been adapted to a new climate.
