Abstract
The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is responsible for the management of the Nation’s water resource infrastructure and is presently challenged to continue the safe operation and management of that aging infrastructure. These challenges span from changes in climate patterns to increased environmental concerns, greater coastal population densities and associated infrastructure, and limited budgets. One way to mitigate these issues is the concept of resilience. In 2013, the Coastal Engineering Research Board (CERB) began to define resilience and understand its relation to coastal water infrastructure needs. This work was a step forward in facilitating the USACE’s integration of resilience into coastal engineering assessment and project design. The CERB has defined resilience using the four concepts of “prepare,” “resist,” “recover,” and “adapt.” These four concepts are utilized in a system-wide approach that encompasses not only water resource engineered infrastructure (that the USACE builds and manages), but also considers community and ecological infrastructure. Using this framework and literature from previous federal and academic studies, three methods were developed that incorporate different levels of expert and data-driven assessment. Two of these methods, herein named Tier 1 and Tier 3, were tested in a pilot study in Jamaica Bay, NY. Building off of the results from Jamaica Bay, Tier 1 is being refined and Tier 2 is in development.
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Notes
Herein, a hazard is considered an environmental or adverse anthropogenic condition; a disturbance is defined as the effect of that hazard on the infrastructure (including engineering, environmental, and community aspects) on a system scale.
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Acknowledgments
This study was funded by the USACE Engineer Research and Development Center’s Navigation and Flood and Coastal Storm Damage Reduction Research and Development Programs, both administered by Headquarters, USACE, with oversight from USACE Headquarters and the Coastal Engineering Research Board. USACE Headquarters granted permission to publish this paper.
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Rosati, J.D., Touzinsky, K.F. & Lillycrop, W.J. Quantifying coastal system resilience for the US Army Corps of Engineers. Environ Syst Decis 35, 196–208 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-015-9548-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-015-9548-3