The Quantification and Evolution of Resilience in Integrated Coastal Systems

Abstract

Integrated coastal systems are designed, constructed, and maintained to achieve navigation, storm damage reduction, and ecosystem restoration objectives. This report develops a generally applicable method to quantify the resilience of integrated coastal systems to disturbances such as coastal storms. In general, resilience is an ambiguous term that can mean different things in different contexts. This report emphasizes engineering resilience, which is the propensity of a system to resist functional impairments as a result of a disturbance and to recover a pre-disturbance level of functional performance following a disturbance. This report describes how this property of integrated coastal systems can be quantified in probabilistic terms, and how the resilience of a system can evolve over time in response to gradual changes in boundary conditions that occur over time scales that are much longer than the disturbance of interest, such as gradual changes in mean sea level. Coastal system processes that are influenced by sea level rise and may affect the resilience of integrated coastal systems are identified. The advantages and disadvantages of probabilistic and non-probabilistic indicators of resilience are discussed.

Beach Sustainability Assessment: The Development and Utility of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Sandy Beach Monitoring

“…For many beaches, an overall grade of C indicates Resilience timeline that represents specific activities that are catalyzed by a disturbance and lead to the next key action. A disaster results in decreased functionality for the system, but through the process of recovery and adaptation, a similar disaster occurring later results in less loss in functionality and a faster recovery time (modified from Schultz et al, 2012;Linkov et al, 2014). high performance in one area and low performance in another (e.g., Table 1).…”

Practical resilience metrics for coastal infrastructure features

“…Garbin and Shortle (2007) outlined an approach to quantitatively measure the resilience of a network as the percentage of links damaged versus the network performance and the percentage of nodes damaged versus the network performance. Schultz et al (2012) discuss the quantification and resilience of integrated coastal systems. Tierney and Bruneau (2007) suggested measuring resilience based on observing that resilient systems reduce the probabilities of failure and enhance recovery, and therefore, resilience can be measured by the performance of an infrastructure system after an external shock including the time it takes to return to initial level of performance.…”

Preventing risk and promoting resilience in radiation health

“…In aiming to achieve stability, fail‐safe infrastructure design neglects the possibility of unpredictable disturbance and change (Ahern ). Engineered systems typically are not flexible and require human intervention and large time scales in order to adapt, whereas natural and social systems that coexist with the built environment have the capability to self‐organize (Schultz et al ). In order to be valid, the assumption that a system will fail in a safe manner needs to include nonrigid structures that can leverage flexibility in order to mitigate the damages caused by the failure.…”