Developing an equity-focused metric for quantifying the social burden of infrastructure disruptions

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ABSTRACT

Communities in the United States are increasingly dependent upon aging infrastructure systems and challenged by more frequent and intense extreme weather events due in part to climate change. However, prioritizing resilience-related investments in these systems is hindered by the lack of performance metrics that objectively quantify the societal outcomes of infrastructure disruptions, such as power or water outages. This article outlines the process of developing an equity-focused resilience metric that captures the social consequences of infrastructure service disruptions on households. Theoretically grounded in the Capabilities Approach (CA) theory of human development, this metric focuses on estimating the burden of post-event adaptations taken by households to maintain their basic capabilities (e.g., ability to access food and water) and fulfill important household functionings (e.g., maintaining health and well-being). A travel cost method (TCM) that considers travel-related expenses, direct out-of-pocket expenses, and opportunity costs is presented as a way to measure the value of locations (e.g., grocery stores, emergency shelters, etc.) that provide services that enable households to maintain capabilities. A gravity-weighted model of accessibility is also discussed as a way to capture the value of having multiple potential service locations from which to choose and offers a way to capture important factors impacting a household’s ability to access important goods and services during outages. The proposed social burden metric equation incorporates the valuation principles of the TCM into the framework of the gravity model, resulting in a novel metric with strong methodological heritage. The article concludes by discussing the types of data needed to populate the proposed metric and future applications of this work that could inform the resilient infrastructure investments and planning necessary to mitigate the social burdens of power outages on vulnerable populations.

KEYWORDS:

• Social burden
• community resilience
• capabilities approach
• resilient infrastructure
• resilience metrics
• social equity

Disclosure statement

The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) reviewed the anonymised abstract of the article, but had no role in the peer review process nor the final editorial decision.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant [number 2128030]; the Natural Hazards Center Public Health Grant Report Series, 21; and Sandia National Laboratories as part of the Grid Modernization Lab Consortium (GMLC) Designing Resilient Communities (DRC) project. The Article Publishing Charge (APC) for this article is funded by the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI).

Notes on contributors

Susan Spierre Clark

Susan Spierre Clark, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of Environment and Sustainability, as well as the Director of the Sustainability Leadership M.A. program in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University at Buffalo. Dr. Clark also serves as Chair of the Erie County Community Climate Change Task Force. She holds a PhD in Sustainability from Arizona State University, an M.S. in Earth System Science from the University of New Hampshire, as well as a B.A. in Atmospheric Science from the University at Albany.

Sara K.E. Peterson

Sara K. E. Peterson is a Ph.D. candidate in Geography at the University at Buffalo, where she studies the human impacts of power outages and consequent infrastructure disruptions. She holds a Master of Science degree in Geographic Information Systems from the University at Buffalo and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography from Dartmouth College.

Michael A. Shelly

Michael A. Shelly, Ph.D. is the RENEW Environmental/Sustainability Economist and a Research Assistant Professor. His research areas include plastics recycling, tire recycling, the climate implications of waste, and the social burden of power outages. Prior to UB, Dr. Shelly worked in environmental consulting for two decades, and before that in economic consulting specializing in the energy industry, and in the economics/strategy department at Unilever. plc. Dr. Shelly holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Edinburgh, a Master’s in Economics from the University of Warwick and a Bachelor of Science in Economics with Geography from Queen Mary, University of London.

Robert F. Jeffers

Robert Jeffers, Ph.D. is a senior resilience advisor for the Energy Security and Resilience Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory based out of Golden, Colorado. Jeffers previously worked at Sandia National Laboratories, where he led research focused on distributed systems integration, power systems R&D, grid modernization, and developing a body of resilience research. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech. and a Ph.D. from Washington State University focused on dynamic simulation for integrated water and energy resource planning.