Breakthrough of the resemblances and correspondences between resilience and sustainability in civil infrastructures

Abstract

Sustainable construction has become a growing trend among researchers and stakeholders. Simultaneously, resilience and risk assessments for civil Infrastructures have flourished in terms of importance among researchers, economic sectors, and society. Nevertheless, there is no abundant research that correspond to both approaches, despite that, there are massive similarities and shared characteristics between both investigation branches. Distinctively, this year has demonstrated that sustainable development is directly obstructed by different extreme events that trigger risks and vulnerabilities in civil Infrastructures. These extreme events require a deep and complex study to minimize the impacts they may cause in society and economy, two main factors considered in the study of sustainability. Therefore, when a risk and resilience assessments are conducted, it is already analyzed as a sizable part of sustainability. Consequently, there exists a possibility to create a methodology that examines and assesses four categories of civil infrastructure sustainability: Technical, environmental, social, and economical. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the need of a comprehensive approach between sustainability, risk, and resilience assessment, compiling and comparing the existing methodologies for assessing the impacts on civil infrastructures, showing that both present resemblances and none can be omitted, being necessary for the decision-making.

Keywords

• civil critical infrastructures
• extreme events
• resilience assessment
• risk assessment
• sustainable construction