GSN_Nov-Dec_FINAL_Yumpu

Atmospheric Administration’s Disaster
Response Center in Mobile,
Alabama, to test methods to calculate
resilience for the Mobile Bay
region. Participating stakeholders
worked with subject matter experts
in systems engineering, coastal engineering,
risk and decision analysis,
and other fields to develop a set
of proposed projects to address key
resilience stages and domains.
Resilience domains include the
physical (built infrastructure as well
as wetlands, dunes, and other natural
features), information (policies,
building codes, evacuation routes,
and other materials), cognitive
(human processes for sharing and
acting upon knowledge to make,
communicate, and implement decisions),
and social (“interactions,
organizations, people, and policies
that influence how decisions are
made,” such as government flood
insurance, religions, cultures, and
languages). “Coastal communities
can improve resilience not only in
the physical domain, but also in the
information, cognitive and social
domains,” says Bostick. The methodology
described in the study is
intended to support such improvements.
Through the workshop, stakeholders
generated 11 project initiatives,
including, for example, reducing
saltwater intrusion, environmental
and coastal storm education, utility
pole replacement, removing scrap
metal, and reducing impervious
surfaces. The subject matter experts
aligned the initiatives with the four
critical stages associated with resilience:
preparing, absorbing, recovering,
and adapting. Participants
also identified a set of critical functions,
such as telecommunication,
electricity, housing, clean water, the
tourism industry, and others.
In reviewing the workshop results,
the authors note that their study
does not seek to measure whether
a community or a coastline is resilient
or not because there “is clearly
no agreement on how this would
be accomplished.” However, the
methodology offers stakeholders
an opportunity to understand the
concept of resilience and scenarios
and, based on this understanding,
to make informed choices on how
to improve the coastal resilience in
their community. “This is a capability
that does not currently exist,” the
authors write.
Risk Analysis: An International
Journal is published by the nonprofit
Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), an
interdisciplinary, scholarly, international
society that provides an open
forum for all who are interested in
risk analysis, a critical function in
complex modern societies. Risk
analysis includes risk assessment,
risk characterization, risk communication,
risk management, and risk
policy affecting individuals, publicand
private-sector organizations,
and societies at a local, regional, national,
or global level. www.sra.org
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