Assessing and strengthening organisational resilience in a critical infrastructure system: Case study of the Slovak Republic

Critical infrastructure is a system that consists of civil infrastructures in which disruption or failure would have a serious impact on the lives and health of the population. It includes, for example, electricity, oil and gas, water supplies, communications and emergency or healthcare services. It is therefore important that technical resilience and organisational resilience is provided continuously and at a high level by the owners and operators of these civil infrastructures. Organisational resilience management mainly consists of continuously assessing determinants in order to identify weak points early so that adequate security measures can be taken to strengthen them. In the context of the above, the article presents a method for Assessing and Strengthening Organisational Resilience (ASOR Method) in a critical infrastructure system. The essence of this method lies in defining the factors that determine organisational resilience and the process of assessing and strengthening organisational resilience. The method thus allows weaknesses to be identified and the subsequent quantification of positive impacts that strengthen individual factors in organisational resilience. A benefit from applying this method is minimizing the risk and subsequent adverse impact on society of critical infrastructure system disruption or failure. The article also contributes to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goal 9, namely Building Resilient Infrastructure. The ASOR method namely contributes to the development of quality, reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure, including regional and trans-border infrastructure. Finally, the article presents the results of this method's practical application on a selected electricity critical infrastructure entity in the Slovak Republic.Web of Science123art. no. UNSP 10457

Vulnerability assessment modelling for railway networks

Railway networks are prone to many different potential disruptive events such as technical failures (e.g. the failure of aging components), natural disasters (e.g. flooding) and intentional man-made disasters (e.g. trespass and suicide). Assessing the vulnerability of railway networks can help infrastructure managers to create the right preventive strategies to improve the robustness and the resilience of railway networks before the occurrence of disruptions. This study proposes a stochastic-vulnerability analysis model that enables the critical components of railway networks to be identified. The model is developed using a discrete event simulation technique. Its framework includes modules for assigning the disruption to the network components, predicting the network vulnerability, in terms of passenger delays and journey cancellations, and calculating the risk-based criticality of network components. Finally, an example application of the model is presented using a part of the East Midland railway network in UK

Health Effects of Adverse Childhood Events: Identifying Promising Protective Factors at The Intersection of Mental and Physical Well-Being

Research documents how exposure to adversity in childhood leads to negative health outcomes across the lifespan. Less is known about protective factors – aspects of the individual, family, and community that promote good health despite exposure to adversity. Guided by the Resilience Portfolio Model, this study examined protective factors associated with physical health in a sample of adolescents and adults exposed to high levels of adversity including child abuse. A rural community sample of 2565 individuals with average age of 30 participated in surveys via computer assisted software. Participants completed self-report measures of physical health, adversity, and a range of protective factors drawn from research on resilience. Participants reporting a greater burden of childhood victimization and current financial strain (but not other adverse life events) had poorer physical health, but those with strengths in emotion regulation, meaning making, community support, social support, and practicing forgiveness reported better health. As hypothesized, strengths across resilience portfolio domains (regulatory, meaning making, and interpersonal) had independent, positive associations with health related quality of life after accounting for participants’ exposure to adversity. Prevention and intervention efforts for child maltreatment should focus on bolstering a portfolio of strengths. The foundation of the work needs to begin with families early in the lifespan

Adaptation of WASH Services Delivery to Climate Change and Other Sources of Risk and Uncertainty

This report urges WASH sector practitioners to take more seriously the threat of climate change and the consequences it could have on their work. By considering climate change within a risk and uncertainty framework, the field can use the multitude of approaches laid out here to adequately protect itself against a range of direct and indirect impacts. Eleven methods and tools for this specific type of risk management are described, including practical advice on how to implement them successfully

The State of Adaptation in the United States: An Overview

Over the past two decades the adaptation landscape has changed dramatically. From its early days as a vague theoretical concept, which was often viewed as a threat to advocating for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, it has developed into a widely, albeit not universally, recognized governmental mandate to reduce societal vulnerability to climate change. While it is important to appreciate the progress that we are making on this issue, it is impossible to ignore the urgent need to do more. Smart investment can be made by reflecting on what is already underway in order to determine where to build on existing efforts and where to innovate new approaches to fill the gaps in the path forward. In this report we provide illustrative examples of the variety of work on climate change adaptation that is underway in the United States. This is by no means an exhaustive survey of the field; however it does provide insight into the dominant focus of work to date, the resultant gaps, and the opportunities available for advancing this essential aspect of sustainability. We focus on four areas of activity -- agriculture, natural resources, human communities, and policy. The general trends relevant to these sectors can be applied more broadly to other sectors and countries. Adaptation can be thought of as a cycle of activities that ultimately -- if successful -- reduces vulnerability to climate change. This process starts with identifying the impacts of climate change to determine the types of problems climate change might pose. This includes all of the research on the causes and the global, regional, and local manifestations of climate change, often referred to as impacts assessments

A flood vulnerability index for coastal cities and its use in assessing climate change impacts

Worldwide, there is a need to enhance our understanding of vulnerability and to develop methodologies and tools to assess vulnerability. One of the most important goals of assessing coastal flood vulnerability, in particular, is to create a readily understandable link between the theoretical concepts of flood vulnerability and the day-to-day decision-making process and to encapsulate this link in an easily accessible tool. This article focuses on developing a Coastal City Flood Vulnerability Index (CCFVI) based on exposure, susceptibility and resilience to coastal flooding. It is applied to nine cities around the world, each with different kinds of exposure. With the aid of this index, it is demonstrated which cities are most vulnerable to coastal flooding with regard to the system's components, that is, hydro-geological, socio-economic and politico-administrative. The index gives a number from 0 to 1, indicating comparatively low or high coastal flood vulnerability, which shows which cities are most in need of further, more detailed investigation for decision-makers. Once its use to compare the vulnerability of a range of cities under current conditions has been demonstrated, it is used to study the impact of climate change on the vulnerability of these cities over a longer timescale. The results show that CCFVI provides a means of obtaining a broad overview of flood vulnerability and the effect of possible adaptation options. This, in turn, will allow for the direction of resources to more in-depth investigation of the most promising strategies

Public-private Partnerships (PPP) in Disaster Management in Developing Countries: A Conceptual Framework

With loss and damages from disasters increasing globally, reports from international agencies show that developing and the least developed countries are most affected by natural disasters. Much of the literature refers to two major problems that these countries face when managing disaster: the role of government and financial restrictions. As a result, it is difficult for these countries to develop a comprehensive disaster management framework and programs. Public-private partnerships (PPP) have become a popular way for governments to engage private actors in the delivery of government infrastructure and services with the aim of increasing quality and providing better value for money. This study will explore whether Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) can be used as a strategic approach to overcome or at least to minimise the negative impacts of disasters in developing countries. Based on a study of previous literature, this paper develops a conceptual framework that describes how the partnership between public and private actors, with certain characteristics, can establish a platform for all actors to contribute towards the objectives of disaster management in developing and least developed countries

Recommender Thermometer for Measuring the Preparedness for Flood Resilience Management

A range of various thermometers and similar scales are employed in different human and resilience management activities: Distress Thermometer, Panic Thermometer, Fear Thermometer, fire danger rating, hurricane scales, earthquake scales (Richter Magnitude Scale, Mercalli Scale), Anxiety Thermometer, Help Thermometer, Problem Thermometer, Emotion Thermometer, Depression Thermometer, the Torino scale (assessing asteroid/comet impact prediction), Excessive Heat Watch, etc. Extensive financing of the preparedness for flood resilience management with overheated full-scale resilience management might be compared to someone ill running a fever of 41°C. As the financial crisis hits and resilience management financing cools down it reminds a sick person whose body temperature is too low. The degree indicated by the Recommender Thermometer for Measuring the Preparedness for Flood Resilience Management with a scale between Tmin=34,0° and Tmax=42,0° shows either cool or overheated preparedness for flood resilience management. The formalized presentation of this research shows how changes in the micro, meso and macro environment of resilience management and the extent to which the goals pursued by various interested parties are met cause corresponding changes in the “temperature” of the preparedness for resilience management. Global innovative aspects of the Recommender Thermometer developed by the authors of this paper are, primarily, its capacity to measure the “temperature” of the preparedness for flood resilience management automatically, to compile multiple alternative recommendations (preparedness for floods, including preparing your home for floods, taking precautions against a threat of floods, retrofitting for flood-prone areas, checking your house insurance; preparedness for bushfires, preparedness for cyclones, preparedness for severe storms, preparedness for heat waves, etc.) customised for a specific user, to perform multiple criteria analysis of the recommendations, and to select the ten most rational ones for that user. Across the world, no other system offers these functions yet. The Recommender Thermometer was developed and fine-tuned in the course of the Android (Academic Network for Disaster Resilience to Optimise educational Development) project