Towards Resilient Communities: Strengthening Infrastructure for Critical Service Provision under Severe Weather Conditions

Abstract

This article presents a methodology aimed at enhancing infrastructure resilience to extreme weather events while ensuring provision of critical services at community level. It describes critical infrastructure systems and services as features of a resilient community, considering that the accessibility to critical services is conditioned to the availability of critical infrastructure systems in different ways. The methodology is written as a mixed-integer linear programming model. The selection of appropriate planning and operational measures for resilience enhancements is made with the objective of ensuring provision of critical services under severe weather conditions subject to technical operating constraints. Furthermore, the methodology is demonstrated in a realistic setting in Stockport, UK, with an impact assessment of disruptions to power and transportation infrastructure systems caused by flooding on the provision of distinct critical services.