Part I of this Special Issue (SI) series consisted of five papers covering four topics in Adaptive Planning: development of planning tools to mitigate flood risks, development of planning tools to improve hazard vulnerability for hurricanes, development of adaptive wastewater management practices and the development of a model for efficient energy planning. This SI, part 2 of the Adaptive Planning SIs, addresses other adaptive planning topics that can advance sustainable and resilient infrastructure. It should be noted that infrastructure consists of both physical and non-physical elements and both must be sustainable and resilient. These topics include resilient and sustainable supplier selection, seismic risk and restoration modeling for railway networks, optimization of maintenance strategies for bridges exposed to corrosive conditions considering climate change, risk-based bridge scour management, and disaster risk reduction policies can benefit from accurate, comprehensive, and development of systematic probabilistic risk and resilient seismic assessments for performance-based planning.
The first paper in this SI (Part 2) addresses the topic of developing sustainable and resilient supply chains. Khan et al. propose the use of a machine-learning model to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) based model to efficiently select suppliers based on performance criteria. The authors use a case study to show that the model can select better performing suppliers.
In the second paper, Farahani et al. propose an integrated, probabilistic model for assessing the seismic multi-hazard risk of railway systems. The assessment method accounts for the effects of seismic wave propagation, liquefaction and landslides using railway and bridge inventory data, seismic multi-hazard analyses and vulnerability modeling and can estimate physical damage and loss estimation. The authors use a case study to assess a railway and report that the model can identify damage states and economic loss resulting from seismic events.
While Farahani et al. addressed the resiliency of infrastructure, Zhang et al. addressed optimizing the sustainability of infrastructure systems. The authors propose a risk-based decision-making process to optimize maintenance and replacement strategies for sustainable, economical and safe systems. To achieve this, the authors propose a decision process formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem targeting performance levels and total costs and identify optimized maintenance/repair/replacement sequences over the life of a structure, considering the uncertainty of climate change and the benefits of delaying major investments. Results indicate that the annual budget constraints are significant factors in optimizing maintenance and replacement strategies.
The fourth paper in this SI addresses the resiliency of bridge structures for scour. Pregnolato et al. report that bridge scour is a major cause of bridge failure, existing methods for quantifying scour are qualitative and subjective, and a rational management approach for scour-susceptible bridges is essential. The authors present the concept of risk in bridge scour management and then introduce a rating system that compares existing published approaches for bridge scour management. This rating system is then used to analyze existing assessment practices and using these results, the authors propose policies for generating a full risk-based approach to bridge scour management.
The last paper in this SI addresses identifying root causes of vulnerabilities to quantify disaster risk reduction policies. Rafiq and Sinha report that accurate, comprehensive, and systematic probabilistic risk and resilience assessments are not commonly used for enhancing infrastructure resilience. The authors present a seismic resilience assessment incorporating functionality loss and pathways for subsequent recovery using a reinforced concrete building as an example. The authors show that both engineering and management interventions (e.g., improving non-structural component performance, eliminating post-disaster impedances, reducing repair delays) can reduce losses, improve response and enhance infrastructure resilience. The study advocates embracing the resiliency mindset, illustrating the benefits of multiple stakeholders for enhancing risk-informed decision-making.
The five papers provide adaptive planning solutions for enhancing sustainability and resiliency of infrastructure systems. This adaptive planning will advance the sustainability and resiliency of our world’s major investment; our infrastructure.