Resilience Through Systems Thinking for Water Infrastructure

Abstract

The civil infrastructure of our communities is an outcome of past practices. These practices are being tested frequently under today’s realities, which include climate extremes as a major factor, and they catastrophically fail at an increasing rate. Infrastructure problems are often approached through siloed solutions to address a singular service: water supply, pollution control and stormwater diversion. While appropriate for the time, the changes in external and connected pressures require a new roadmap. To achieve the infrastructure resilience needed to manage and mitigate the impacts of climate change, population growth, economic and societal movements, we must envision a future that builds on today, yet provides a trajectory that is unlike our past. Our resilience is predicated on systems thinking, and our ability to do long-range planning for our water infrastructure considering phased and integrated implementation of innovative engineering and nature-based approaches. For that, we must start the resiliency journey of our water infrastructure by acting now and acting with urgency.