The Role of Critical Infrastructure in Community Resilience to Disasters

This paper issues a call to improve the conceptual underpinnings of community resilience to disasters as it relates to critical infrastructure. It is argued that, broadly, infrastructure is the combination of both capital and services. Loss and recovery, and thus resilience, of infrastructure do not make practical sense without consideration of both. Specifically, infrastructure is characterized by its relationship to other infrastructure, agents, possible disruptions, possible interventions, jurisdictions and markets. Based on this and previous development work related to the resilience simulation model ResilUS, the beginnings of a new conceptual model are proposed. The comprehensive nature of the model suggests it is appropriate for planning purposes. The conceptual model provides opportunities for advancing ResilUS, specifically, and infrastructure and community resilience research and planning broadly. It facilitates the creation of a database schema for infrastructure loss and restoration and its impact on indicators of community resilience. Population of this schema will push understanding of community resilience and facilitate the development of better tools for supporting resilience planning.