Infrastructures are increasingly facing more climate risks. To make them more resilient, two major aspects should be considered: the type and frequency of the hazards they face, but also understanding where and how infrastructure is exposed to climate risks. In his RECEIPT research, Elco Koks looks for weakness bottlenecks, where a single failure could undermine the overall resilience of networks. He explained what this means in this blog.
When trying to increase the resilience of infrastructures, the bigger picture is often forgotten. Say a major storm offshore is preventing ships to dock to an important port. The entire supply chain could be blocked, without the port itself being damaged. This can be felt by producers, who have no way of shipping off their assets, all the way to retailers, who can’t get hold of finished products.
New technologies and datasets have the potential to give us a clearer understanding of the climate vulnerability of key infrastructures. Academic institutions can partner with corporations and public bodies to interpret data and better understand cascading, interconnected effects across entire networks and systems. Because the economic impacts of climate change will affect us all, we need to work together to make our infrastructure resilient to climate change.
Find out more in Elco’s blog !
Published on : 21 October 2021