Author(s)

M. Collins, J. Carlson & F. Petit

Abstract

Several recent studies have provided a range of perspectives on the role of resilience in policies and programs designed to address natural and man-made threats. A review of those studies reveals that there is strong agreement that the concept of resilience must play a major role in assessing the extent to which various entities—critical infrastructure and key resources, systems, communities, and regions—are prepared to deal with the full range of threats they face. As resilience assessment methodologies continue to be developed and implemented for resilience at various levels, it is critical that a framework be developed to utilize measurements of resilience at multiple levels to characterize a community’s resilience to potential hazards. Argonne National Laboratory, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has developed a framework that combines existing measures of critical infrastructure and organization resilience with new measurement tools in order to characterize five subsystems of a community: the economy, physical infrastructure, government and nongovernmental organizations, emergency services, and the civilian population. The resilience of each of these subsystems will be measured through various tools, including an assessment of economic diversity; a review of community continuity of operations and government plans for essential functions; an analysis of critical infrastructure and organizational resilience to include lifeline utilities and vital private sector organizations; a study of disaster public education; communication and evacuation programs; and a review of the emergency services capabilities that a community possesses. Through the application of these measures, a community can better understand its current resilience posture, as well as implement a systematic approach to reduce vulnerabilities and consequences of potential hazards. Keywords: resilience, community resilience, disaster preparedness, critical infrastructure resilience, risk mitigation, emergency management.

Keywords

resilience, community resilience, disaster preparedness, critical infrastructure resilience, risk mitigation, emergency management