Infrastructure are sustainable when they address present needs without sacrificing future needs. Infrastructure are resilient when they are able to recover from disasters brought by natural hazards (e.g., earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, cyclones, tornados, floodings and droughts), anthropogenic hazards (e.g., human errors, malevolent attacks), and are able to resist deterioration and reduced service. Sustainability and resilience are interdependent. Sustainability calls for parsimonious use of limited resources with minimal environmental impact while resiliency requires resources to ensure performance of the built environment. Both sustainability and resiliency are impacted by our changing environment.
Adaptive and integrated disaster resilience, and thus sustainability, is dependent on designing and building resilience in a systematic, integrated, and dynamic manner. This Special Issue (SI) on Adaptive Planning for Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure I continues to seek to better understand how to integrate flexibility into infrastructure planning, design and construction under changing environmental conditions. This planning, design and construction must depend on future conditions and adaptive pathways must identify actions or processes that can be progressively implemented to produce inclusive, economical, resilient and sustainable infrastructure.
This SI on Adaptive Planning for Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure I is a continuation of our initial SI on Adaptive Pathways for Resilient Infrastructure, sponsored by the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI). This SI sought evidence-based science and engineering and case studies that promote adaptive pathways to target policymakers and practitioners. Like the initial SI, the ultimate objective of this SI is to implement these practices to enhance the robustness of methods and processes that result in sustainable and resilient infrastructure.
This SI covers four general topics: development of planning tools to mitigate flood risks, development of planning tools to improve hazard vulnerability due to hurricanes, an assessment of wastewater management practices and how these practices can be modified to be adaptive, and the development of a model for efficient energy planning.
Masterson et al. introduce a new approach for an evidence-based enhanced preparatory technique for developing improved practices for improved hurricane planning, referred to by the authors as Plan I.Q. The developed framework uses qualitative assessment and spatial analysis in GIS to develop these integrated plans. The authors then applied the framework for the development of a new comprehensive plan for the City of Rockport, Texas, which incurred heavy damages from Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The results from using the integrated plan indicated improvements to plan quality and integration.
Shandiz et al. address energy master planning (EMP) for new net-zero emissions communities (NZECs) and conclude that the common perceptions associated with the reliability and economics of these systems can be incorrect. The authors show that EMP for NZECs can be reliable and economical.
Beleno de Oliveira et al. present a framework to analyse future flood scenarios considering the effects of climate change and resulting rainfall intensification and mean sea level rise, unplanned urbanization and uncontrolled land use that can stress drainage infrastructure, and how maintenance practices affect these urban drainage systems. The authors conclude that unplanned urban growth without adequate and maintained infrastructure can be more influencing than climate change. The authors note the importance of good planning and continued maintenance of these systems.
Ross et al. explore institutional practices for flood planning and conclude that adaptive planning is largely absent in flood planning. The authors conclude flood planning is often performed in static terms that do not fully consider future uncertainties, that these plans fail to engage diverse participation, and these plans often and neglect to pursue co-benefits. The implementation of adaptive planning is needed.
Finally, Porse et al. evaluate adaptation pathways for wastewater management. The authors report that few studies have investigated how past design assumptions influence wastewater management. The authors report California’s wastewater industry is largely pursuing an incremental adaptation pathway. The paper presents an engaged approach adaptive planning.
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David Trejo
David Trejo is Professor and Hal D. Pritchett Endowed Chair in the School of Civil and Construction Engineering at Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA. His research interests include sustainability and resilience of infrastructure systems, with focus on service-life analyses, innovative materials and systems for improved sustainability and resiliency, and quantifying and modeling deterioration mechanisms for improved performance and resiliency predictions.