Term Paper Milestone 3

Incorporating both Resilience and Sustainability in Design of Infrastructure Projects

ESM 650 – Construction Management

Spring 2019

Syed Shah Mohiuddin Quadri (59934)

Submitted to: Dr. Irtishad Ahmad

Date: 01/05/2019
1. Abstract

In recent years, the concepts of resilience and sustainability have become very topical and popular.
The words “resilience” and “sustainability” are currently dominating research trends and practical
interests in the field of civil infrastructure. There have been very few investigations into how to
combine resilience and sustainability in a unified methodology for the design, assessment, and
maintenance management of civil infrastructure systems. This paper suggests that resilience and
sustain- ability are complementary and should be used in an integrated perspective. In particular,
the proposed approach is rooted in the well-established framework of risk assessment. The impact
of the infrastructure and its service states on the society in normal operational conditions (assessed
by sustainability analysis) and after exceptional events (assessed by resilience analysis) should be
weighted by the associated probabilities of occurrence and combined in a global impact
assessment. The proposed perspective and assessment technique is applicable to various types of
civil infrastructure systems, but the case of transportation networks and bridge systems is
emphasized herein. A numerical application dealing with the comparative analysis of two possible
bridge layouts is presented to exemplify the approach. The results show that both resilience and
sustainability analyses assess a relevant amount of the impact of the bridge on the community
where it is built, so neither one can be neglected.
2. Introduction

The concept of sustainability rose to prominence in the late 1980s and became a central issue in
world politics, when the construction industry began to generate the first sustainable building
assessment systems with more or less equally weighted environmental, economic, and social
aspects for office buildings over their life cycles. On the other hand, resilience is usually connected
to the occurrence of extreme events during the life cycle of structures and infrastructures. In the
last decade, it has been used to minimize specifically direct and indirect losses from hazards
through enhanced resistance and robustness to extreme events, as well as more effective recovery
strategies Turner (2010). A detailed comparison of the studies dealing with either infrastructure
sustainability or resilience presented in this paper leads to the conclusion that they have a vast
number of similarities and common characteristics. For instance, they both combine structural
analyses with social and economic aspects; they both rely on techniques for the life-cycle analysis
and decision making; they both are in an early stage, where the academic world is trying to find
the best way to promote the application of the scientific results among professional engineers and
the industry. Indeed, both approaches try to optimize a system, such as a civil infrastructure system,
with respect to structural design, utilized material, maintenance plans, management strategies, and
impacts on the society Ghosh et al. (2011). However, for the most part, researchers and
practitioners focusing on either resilience or sustainability operate without a mutual consideration
of the findings, which leads to a severe inefficiency. A severe inefficiency can be identified
because the theoretical and practical development of resilience and sustainability has taken place
separately and, for the most part, without a mutual consideration of the findings. The main cause
of this issue probably stems from the different historical origins of these two concepts. This paper
presents an effort to develop a unified perspective for both resilience and sustainability. The first
part of this paper provides an introduction to the history of both sustainability and resilience. Next,
similarities and differences are analyzed, considering the probability of occurrence during the life
cycle. Afterward, issues such as integration of resilience and sustainability for infrastructures,
midterm strategies, and long-term necessities are addressed (Rose, 2011). Finally, the most
relevant conclusions are drawn.
3. Background in Sustainability and Resilience
3.1. Sustainability

Sustainability has passed through an intensively discussed process of development during the past
20 years. On the basis of political decisions and strategies, the implementation of sustainable
development has to be achieved by practical actions. The first United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development, also known as the “Earth Summit,” was conducted in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. The most important result was the adoption of Agenda 21, an act ion
program containing specifications, inter alia, to fight poverty and create effective energy policy,
as well as fostering financial and technological cooperation of industrialized and developing
countries (UNCED, 1993). In addition, the results were extended and strengthened during the
Johannesburg summit in 2002 (UN, 2002). For the first time, the transcription into specific policy
goals was realized at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Kyoto in
1997 (UN, 1998) by determining obligatory targets for the limitation of environmental impacts,
such as the reduction of CO2 emissions.

On the basis of the above mentioned conventions and reports, a broad discussion dealing with
sustainability and sustainable development took place. As a result, an understanding of three
different dimensions or pillars was developed, which specified the conceptual model of
sustainability. The three dimensions of sustainability—economic, ecological, and social—are
internationally accepted as a well-established framework these days (Otto, 2007). Fig. 1 illustrates
a possible categorization considering four levels of hierarchy and important aspects for
construction works. In this figure, the lower levels influence one or more goals associated with the

Figure 1: Aspects of Sustainability

higher levels. For example, the project management can influence the ecological, economical, and
social output of a project, while impacts on communities and neighbors mainly address the social
dimension.

In the building industry, the development of sustainability assessment methods and systems
started at the beginning of the 1990s, when the international discussion in politics was emerging.
For buildings, the British Building Research Establishment Environ- mental Assessment Method
(BREEAM) was the first sustainability assessment system; it was launched in 1990 (Lee, 2012).
In 1998, the American Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system entered
the market (Berardi, 2012). Both first- generation assessment systems are characterized by a strong
focus on environmental aspects and explicitly embed this emphasis in their designation as well.
Until now, BREEAM and LEED have been the most important international assessment systems,
and despite its late creation, DGNB is becoming increasingly relevant. Furthermore, several new
systems have been created in different countries, with an emphasis on buildings (Barbosa et al. ,
2011)

Efforts to establish an international standardization basis and to harmonize existing approaches

began in 2002 with the founding of the International Sustainability Working Committee ISO/TC
59/SC 17 “Sustainability in Buildings and Civil Engineering Works” and the European Committee
CEN/TC 350 “Sustainability of Construction Works” reports. Standards at the product,
component, and building levels are expected to be created by these committees. Only one work
group of the ISO/TC 59/SC 17 committee is dealing with the development of indicators for the
specific field of infra- structures. Within the next two years, only two standards dealing with
infrastructures are expected to be released: ISO 15392, “Sustainability in Building construction—
General Principles,” and ISO/ TS 21929-2, “Framework Indicators for Infrastructures.” On the
contrary, approximately five standards at the international level and eight at the European level are

Figure 2: Timeline of International Sustainability Developments in Construction

being prepared for buildings (DIN, 2012). Figure 2 illustrates the timeline of sustainability
developments in construction. Very few integral approaches specifically designed for the
sustainability assessment of infrastructures are available compared to those for building
construction. A first overview of Sustainability in Infrastructure was given by Yao et al. (2011).
In addition, some studies have been published that are dealing with special types of infrastructures,
such as Muench et al. (2011) for roads, Zinke and Ummenhofer (2011) for bridges, and Beck
(1996) for wastewater infrastructure. Other studies were more general and their results can be
applied to various kinds of infrastructure systems. Among these, only the English tool CEEQUAL
(originally titled as “Civil Engineering Environmental Quality Assessment and Award Scheme”)
has been actively used in the market until now (CEEQUAL, 2010). In July 2011, public discussion
about a new American system named Envision started [Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure
(ISI), 2011]. It was developed on the basis of CEEQUAL and some additional documents, such as
the Project Sustainability Management Guidelines (FIDIC, 2004). In addition to the existing
approaches, an Australian assessment system on the basis of CEEQUAL was announced at the
beginning of 2012.

3.2. Resilience

The first seed of the definition of resilience that is currently the most popular was proposed several
years later by Zhou et al. (2010): in synthesis, resilience is the ability of human communities to
withstand external shocks or perturbations to their infrastructure and to recover from such
perturbations. This definition introduces two paramount aspects. First, when dealing with civil
engineering, resilience is a property of communities rather than structures or infrastructures.
Second, resilience is not only about being able to withstand a certain disturbance, but also about
having resources and means for a prompt, efficient, and effective recovery. These two aspects (i.e.,
resilience is a property of a community, and resilience involves the recovery process) are clearly
bonded. For example, the ability of a bridge to withstand an unusual external shock depends almost
exclusively on its structural characteristics, but the recovery process is affected heavily by the
technological, economic, and political conditions of the community interested in restoring the
bridge. Therefore, there are the three results (or outcomes) of resilience. A resilient system is (1)
more reliable, since it has a lower probability of reaching limit states. In fact, the so-called
robustness guarantees that even in case of extreme events, the extent of damage and the reduction
of functionality are small. Indeed, this can be achieved only if the reliability with respect to service
and ultimate limit states is very high. Moreover, resilience is associated with (2) fast recovery. As
already mentioned, the rapidity of functionality restoration. In fact, the reduced probability of
significant service level reduction and fast recovery contributes to the reduction of the impact of
extreme events on the society. This in turn also yields a reduction of the risk associated with
extreme events (Rose, 2011). Figure 3 illustrates the different aspects of resilience.

Figure 3: Aspects of Resilience

Upon continued research in the field of resilience, there has been a shift from the reactive
attributes of a disaster towards a more proactive method of Disaster Risk Management (DRM), by
incorporating resilience during the design stage (Glass et al.,2008). There are four stages of DRM
that are adopted by The United Nations’ International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR,
2004); all phases are mutually interconnected, hazard identification, mitigation adaptations,
preparedness planning, and recovery and reconstruction planning. Initially, the probability of
occurrence of a hazard along with its impact is determined. Based on the frequency and magnitude
of a disaster, mitigation adaptations must be developed to counter the effects of the disaster; these
can either be structural or non-structural. The structure can be designed to mitigate a disaster only
to a certain extent; after which the construction becomes uneconomical. Therefore, recovery
planning (short term) and reconstruction planning (long term) must be integrated. All the four
stages of DRM must be established during the design stage unlike the traditional reactive attributes
of Disaster Management. For the DRM activities, pre-construction phase was recognized as the
most critical phase; where hazard mitigation can be integrated. (Bosher et al., 2007).
 During the preconstruction phase, the major stakeholders including architects, civil
engineers, urban planners, specialist contractors, and municipalities must be involved to identify
hazard mitigation considerations. One of an important measure in improving the resilience of built
environment towards natural and human-induced disaster is to revise the existing building codes
and specifications with improved resilient parameters; to undoubtedly attain a more resilient
environment (Soetanto et al., 2008). Rotterdam, the second largest city in the Netherlands is a
highly prone area for flooding; thereby, Rotterdam has flooding as a resilience subject. Therefore,
the buildings in Rotterdam is designed with reference to built environment that adopt flood-
resilient design, such as using permeable designs that facilitates the flow of water through the
building quickly without any accumulation (Alexander,2013). This is an example of a resilient
design from a building level; whereas a series of such flood resistant buildings enables the city to
recover from flooding events. This clearly shows how resilience at a building level contributes
towards nation’s resilience. In addition, figure 2 illustrates how resilience at a building level
contributes towards the global resilience using a resilience scale (colding, 2007).

4. Incorporating both Sustainability and Resilience into Design

4.1. Comparing Resilience and Sustainability

An analysis of the terminology and definitions of both concepts shows that the two common
definitions were developed completely independently. While the common definition of
sustainability focuses on future developments in regular conditions, resilience refers to the
capabilities of a community reacting to an abnormal impact. Here, no match can be found.
Moreover, some people argue that incorporating resilience into design can lead to sustainability
tradeoff. However, this paper will argue against the statement that a resilient design leads to a trade
off in sustainability. Both concepts address a holistic view and deal with the assessment of an
infrastructure system. Sustainability is more related to an environmental orientation and the
reduction of impacts on the environment, while resilience deals with extreme events and disaster
management. Overall, some good matchings can be identified, although the keywords show
different emphases.

As an important category to use for comparison, the different dimensions or pillars used in
both concepts can be identified. Some interesting similarities can be found here. Both resilience
and sustainability use social and economic categories as a basis for the assessment. In addition,
technical and organizational dimensions are addressed by the concept of resilience. Altogether,
several parallels can be found when comparing the different dimensions. Though, sustainability
and resilience use differently organized schemes and a slightly different terminology. The targets
of the two concepts do not match at first glance. While sustainability aims to reduce impacts and
resources and, more generally, to satisfy the needs of today’s generation without living at the
expense of future generations, resilience aims to achieve the robustness and rapid recovery of
systems. It can be realized that the goal of resilience is more specific.

From the point of view of decision makers, authorities, and communities, robustness and
rapidity of systems are aimed, in turn, at reducing social and economic impacts. The emphasis here
can depend on the owner of the infrastructure: if the owner is public, it is interested in the impacts
on the society, whereas if it is private, it is usually interested only in the aspects for which it is
directly accountable. But this can apply to sustainability as well. Hence, a good match can be
identified here. It is not useful and neat to assign several different labels to a structure, such as a
sustainability label, a resilience label, an energy efficiency label, and an architectural award.
Instead, decision makers should focus on creating a structure with an optimal performance
according to different, partially conflicting objectives. Thus, labels can be described as a
communication tool, but not as a primary aim for sustainability and resilience assessment, even if
they already exist in both the sustainability and resilience markets.

Regarding the spatial scale of resilience, the assessment is performed mainly at the community
and network levels. An application at the level of an individual structure is possible but not
customary. In contrast, the sustainability assessment is usually performed at the building level for
construction work. But even for sustainability, especially for infrastructure systems, interactions
between the building itself and the surrounding environment become increasingly important. As a
result, sustainability assessment started at a small spatial scale and is expanding, while resilience
is applied mainly at a larger spatial scale. For instance, in some countries (e.g., Germany), the
impact of transport investments are quantified at the network level by national investment plans.
In summary, both concepts are very likely to provide possibilities for assessing systems and
structures at large as well as at small scale in the near future, depending on the goal of the
assessment. The instruments and calculation methods used for the assessment are quite similar.
For scientific calculations, both concepts use life-cycle costs (LCCs), external costs, user costs,
and multi- criteria decision making for the analysis. The method of calculating external costs can
be applied to sustainability assessment and in- corporates user costs, but also it incorporates effects
like accidents, noise, and air pollution. It must be emphasized that the concept of external costing
is much more common for assessing transport activities than for infrastructure sustainability
assessments at present. Differences can be found in the methods for life-cycle assessment (LCA),
which involves sustainability, and extreme event simulation, which involves resilience. In the
common practice, checklist based schemes are applied to both systems. In this case, a textual
description delivers possible assessment levels, and the experts have to classify the infrastructure
according to the given categories. Due to the basically similar procedure, a good parallel can be
determined for this item.

Finally, very good compliance can be found for the relevance in science and practice. The
interest in the development of sustain- ability and resilience concepts started to grow between 2000
and 2005, and in the past three years an increasing number of projects and papers have dealt with
the assessment of infrastructures. Until now, the significance of resilience and sustainability for
practical applications is low on average, but the number of people and institutions pushing toward
practical usage shows a strongly increasing trend. Some preliminary attempts to combine both
concepts can be found in the literature (Zinke et al. 2012a). For instance, Turner (2010) discusses
the two concepts in general and describes some interesting approaches, with a focus on
vulnerability analyses. Since no conflation is delivered, this paper is more conceptual. De- spite
the fact that they were primarily meant for sustainability assessment, the existing British
CEEQUAL (2010) and American Envision (ISI 2011) sustainability assessment schemes for infra-
structures also cover aspects associated with resilience to some extent. Different publications deal
with sustainability assessment that covers the possible risks associated with the location of a
structure and climate change, even though no further hazard-related consequences are addressed
(Larsen et al. 2011; NRC 2009). When the term “resilience” is used there, mainly the robustness
of a structure to climate change and increasing negative climate effects is meant. Therefore, from
the perspective of sustainability, it can be concluded that issues covering resilience are only
partially considered. On the other hand, the idea of incorporating the probability of occurrence of
natural and anthropogenic hazards can be seen as a first step in the right direction. Since the experts
who develop sustainability assessment systems are usually not specialists in risk assessment, they
decided to incorporate a first simple criterion.
Table 1: Similarities and Differences between Sustainability and Resilience

The similarities and differences between Sustainability and Resilience are tabulated in Table
1. The idea of incorporating sustainability aspects in hazard/ resilience analyses is promising as
well. For instance, Ghosh et al. (2011) present an approach that incorporates embodied energy in
the assessment of bridges exposed to hazards. Embodied energy, or life-cycle energy assessment
(LCEA), is an alternative concept to the more comprehensive life-cycle analysis. Here, the
conventional procedure to calculate life-cycle costs for damages caused by hazards is extended.
Only one aspect of sustainability is addressed, but it moves toward the development of a holistic
assessment system and connects resilience and sustainability. Also, Rose (2011) incorporates a
few sustainability aspects in the concept of post hazard rehabilitation measures. This connection
is necessary because building a resilient structure does not necessarily mean creating a sustainable
structure. In the 2013, Report Card on America’s Infrastructure, the two terms are named together
as one of three key solutions to raising the infrastructure condition grades. So the two concepts are
part of a single essential strategy, even if the Report Card addresses them separately (ASCE 2013).
It can be concluded that the community of scholars dealing with sustainable communities and those
dealing with risk and resilience started to look at each other.

4.2. Unified Approach to both Sustainability and Resilience

The previous sections of this paper described the idea and the cur- rent status of resilience and
sustainability. Based on this information, the fundamental nature of both concepts can be
identified. Infrastructure sustainability assessment analyzes all predictable and regular impacts
of the considered infrastructure on the community (i.e., people, environment, and economy)
during its service life. The assessment is usually performed in the planning period of a project
and normally carried out with the help of predefined assessment systems and the entire project
team. The defined assessment indicators measure the projected performance during the design,
construction, operation, and removal period in three dimensions: ecology, economy, and society.
On the other hand, resilience aims to analyze the impact of the infrastructure due to extreme
events and the ability of the entire community to react effectively under these circumstances. The
assessment is based on quantification methods normally applied by structural engineers.

Both concepts consider the entire life cycle of the infrastructure, and both estimate the impact
of the infrastructure on the society, but focus on events of different extents, as Fig. 4 shows.

Figure 4: Impact of Sustainability and Resilience

While sustainability addresses impacts that are distributed over the life cycle and will almost
certainly occur (e.g., annual costs of maintenance based on typical predefined degradation
curves), resilience emphasizes the impact of the infrastructure damage, failure, and recovery
when subject to hazards with a low probability of occurrence and potentially high consequences.
These latter impacts are rare, and they are likely never to occur during the infrastructure service
life. However, due to their magnitude, if one of them occurs, it is likely to overwhelm the
cumulative life-cycle impact that sustainability addresses.

These two concepts are both trying to support decision makers in designing structures or
infrastructure systems. Here, the challenge arises: namely, the infrastructure should be resilient
and sustainable, but it is very difficult to compare the outcomes of any decision with respect to
impacts as different as those considered by resilience analyses and sustainability assessments.
The first step toward the achievement of this goal is an acknowledgment that these two metrics
will measure the major objectives of the future infrastructure systems. The second step is the use
of a rigorous, quantitative, and unified approach that combines resilience and sustainability. This
approach has to assess the impact associated with various events so that they can be compared.
Introduction
In engineering resilience, the goal is to return the system to its prior normal predisturbance state
(Davoudi 2012).

Some see resilience as something that can be achieved with traditional risk management, and
equate or include traditional risk management as the whole or key part of resilience work (e.g.,
city governments). Risk management identifies and quantifies risks in terms of severity of impact
and likelihood, and selects mitigation actions based on risk reduction potential and costs. It is well
suited to known risks of known probability that manifest one at a time (Park et al. 2013). However,
in a world in which increasingly there are unknown risks or known risks of inestimable probability
or the manifestation of multiple risks all at once, many feel that traditional risk management is no
longer sufficient and that a new holistic systems way of thinking is required (Park et al. 2013).

Over recent decades, much attention has been paid to sustainable design of the built environment,
in which sustainable has been taken to mean “less negatively impacting to both humans and the
environment in the present as well as into the future” (Uda and Kennedy 2015). The sustainable
building field is well established, with several rating systems developed such as the British
Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), German Council for Sustainable Building (DGNB)
systems (Reith and Orova 2015), and the Living Building Challenge. Recently, however, with
growing concern over future risks, mainly due to a changing climate and its impacts, there has
been a shift of focus from solely sustainability to also resilience, the definition of which has a
number of variations, one being “the capability of dealing with future shocks and stresses (all
shocks and stresses, not just climate change) and continuing to function” (Uda and Kennedy,
2015); the definition is further discussed subsequently.

With the emergence of the need for resilience, it is important to ask whether buildings and
neighborhoods designed to be sustainable are also resilient. If they are, then it is fine to continue
to focus on sustainability; if they are not, however, the approach will need to be modified. In
actuality, the truth likely lies between.
Main Body

If a neighborhood, for instance, is not resilient to a water shortage, then it will not survive when a
water shortage occurs and will not have sustained. Similarly, it could be argued that in order to be
resilient, one must also be sustainable. If a neighborhood, for instance, relies on a finite (i.e.,
unsustainable) water source, it is guaranteed to one day suffer. Thus, sustainability and resilience
both depend on one another.

The risks related to climate change were: heatwaves (and more ground level ozone); water shortage
(due to drought or loss of water quality due to lake level drop or coastal salinization); extreme rain
or snow (including rain from hurricanes)

It is clear that a new approach is required to ensure that neighborhoods become resilient to the
wide range of future shocks/ stresses that await them. One approach may be to incorporate
resilience into sustainability. Luederitz et al. (2013), who attempted to develop an integrated set
of sustainable urban neighborhood development principles, included resilience as one of the nine
principles. In this vein, perhaps LEED-ND could be revised to become a sustainability rating
system inclusive of resilience considerations.
Effect of Sustainability on Resilience

In particular, there are likely a number of design decisions made at this scale that can have a large
influence on how a community is impacted by a shock or stress. For example, the amount of green
space would significantly impact how a community is impacted by a heatwave.

One way to explore this important question is to test a neighborhood sustainability rating system
against various future shocks and stresses. This paper examines the LEED for Neighborhood
Development rating system, which is the dominant system in the United States, for its resilience
potential with respect to a wide range of future shocks and stresses.

To conduct the assessment, the authors first created a list of 24 future shocks and stresses based
on Uda and Kennedy (2015). Next, the sustainability actions required/suggested by LEED-ND
were extracted. Finally, the extracted sustainability actions were tested for resilience potential
against each of the 24 future shocks/stresses.

Another future shock for which LEED-ND has a high number of resilience actions is extreme
rain/snow, including that from hurricanes (17 actions in total, 13 of which are strong or normal
yeses). LEED-ND has a number of actions that can help deal with this future shock: avoiding
floodplains; having wetlands, habitat, undisturbed lands, passive open areas, large trees, and green
infrastructure, all of which help absorb and infiltrate water; reduced parking lot area, which can
reduce stormwater runoff; erosion and sediment control during construction, which can reduce
flooding due to streams or stormwater drains clogged with sediment; raised ground floors, which
can protect upper floors of a residence from flooding (Larsen et al. 2011); steep slope protection;
brownfield remediation, which can reduce contamination during a flood; and good connectivity,
which can provide alternate routes if roads are flooded or can facilitate evacuation ahead of
hurricanes. Water efficiency or reuse may also contribute because they can reduce sewer flows
and thus combined sewer overflows in areas with combined sewers.
Introduction

In recent years there have been many disparate uses of the terms sustainability and resilience, with
some framing sustainability and resilience as the same concept, and others claiming them to be
entirely different and unrelated. To investigate similarities, differences, and current management
frameworks for increasing sustainability and resilience, a literature review was undertaken that
focused on integrated use of sustainability and resilience in an environmental management context.
Sustainability was defined through the triple bottom line of environmental, social and economic
system considerations. Resilience was viewed as the ability of a system to prepare for threats,
absorb impacts, recover and adapt following persistent stress or a disruptive event.

Resilience and sustainability are also linked to global political trends, where global frameworks
and multilateral agendas are being developed in ways that promoted sustainability and resilience
in urbanization (Folke et al., 2002). These overlapping goals and application areas have led to
combined sustainability and resilience departments in some government agencies (e.g., City of El
Paso Office of Resilience and Sustainability), universities (e.g., Urban Sustainability and
Resilience program at University College London)

Despite the similarities between sustainability and resilience, these are separate and distinct
concepts that are subject to misuse if their differences are neglected. Many applications illustrate
differences in spatial and temporal scales, with sustainability efforts often focused on larger spatial
scales (Redman, 2014) and longer temporal scales (Meacham, 2016) than resilience. Moreover,
resilience can be achieved at one temporal or spatial scale at the expense of another (Chelleri et
al., 2015; Meerow et al., 2016). In the community development context, sustain- ability initiatives
tend to focus on preserving traditional methods of resource use, livelihoods, environmental
knowledge, and environmental resources. In contrast, resilience initiatives tend to focus on
adapting to new conditions, creating innovative uses of traditional knowledge, creating new
environmental knowledge, and improving living conditions and employment (Lew et al., 2016).
However, resilience is often simplified to focus on one of these dimensions for greater public
appeal when used in community development (Mulligan et al., 2016). Further, resilience tends to
prioritize processes of systems or features, whereas sustainability prioritizes outcomes of that
system (Park et al., 2013). Other differences are present in the way in which sustainability and
resilience are used in decision-making. Increasingly, sustainability is often incorporated into
decisions made at an institutional level, with goals ranging from individual product or process
enrichment to increasing community well- ness through responsible development (Chelleri et al.,
2015). Resilience, in many cases, is implemented as a response to interruption, although much of
resilience remains rooted in preparedness.

Sustainability is viewed through economic, environmental, and social domains, and are evaluated
using life-cycle assessment. Resilience, here, is viewed as the resistance to reduction in
functionality of the system or feature, which can be translated to monetized parameters such as
infrastructure repair cost, cost of lost operational time, and outsourcing requirements.

Framework for Sustainability and Resilience

Fig. 1 illustrates how the resilience of a system can impact that system's sustainability, and
addresses how a resilient system can become sustainable after recovering from a disruption
through the adaptive component of resilience.

Saunders and Becker (2015) use this framework to explore case studies of risk in earthquake-prone
communities in New Zealand, and conclude that lowering risk leads to increased resilience and
increased sustainability. In another framework application, random person X presents resilience
as one perspective among a spectrum of four sustainability perspectives including security,
reliability, and renew- al. On this spectrum, sustainability moves from secure or static
(preservation of the status quo) to a state of renewal that facilitates rapid change and all-inclusive
reorganization.

One important difference between sustainability and resilience is the temporal scale of
implementation. Sustainability efforts are often under- stood on longer time scales than resilience.
The primary objective of sustainability is to create desirable conditions for future generations
(Meacham, 2016). Thus, the effects of sustainability policies may not directly influence present
conditions, but may have substantial effects on future conditions. Resilience, on the other hand, is
understood in many situations to apply to more immediate temporal scales (Lew et al., 2016).
Policies that increase the resilience of a system will protect the system in the short term from
potential disturbances.

By drawing conclusions from a wide breadth of applications, this analysis provides critical insights
for the joint implementation of sustainability and resilience that can more effectively drive action
and management. Hopefully, this will aid in future efforts to minimize conflicts and maximize
synergies between sustainability and resilience.
Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to stimulate discussion on how the two terms are being used, and to
provide examples of their usage in a land use recovery context from natural hazard events. First,
the paper will provide an overview of the terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘resilience’ to ascertain the
similarities and differences be- tween the two terms. The overview will also cover how these terms
are used in the New Zealand legislative setting. Second, the paper will provide some discussion
and thought about the relationship between sustainability and resilience. Third, recovery can
provide a useful framing of the relationship between sustainability and natural hazards, and assist
in setting the context for sustainability and resilience.

Sustainability and Resilience

Overview of Sustainability

Three key elements underpin the concept of sustainable development: economic, environmental,
and social well-beings. The interaction and reconciliation of these three well- beings is critical to
the pursuit of sustainable development.

Overview of Resilience

In the past, resilience has often been described as the ability to ‘bounce back’ after a disaster.
Within a disaster context, Paton and Johnston have defined resilience as the ability to adapt to the
demands, challenges and changes encountered during and after a disaster. Having an adaptive
capacity means that individuals, communities and institutions are able to readily adapt to adverse
circumstances when dealing with the impact of a disaster. Following a disaster there are two typical
timeframes that affect resilience. The first is the short term period immediately following a
disaster, where people must be resilient in the face of their response to the disaster. This may be
the period where people are focused on surviving an event itself, and in looking after themselves
or their communities in the days immediately afterward. The second timeframe is much longer and
encompasses the recovery period which may stretch out from days to weeks and years. The long
term recovery period is a challenging time for resilience. It is this period where resilience and
sustainability be- come intertwined, as people seek to recover their communities to become more
resilient (e.g. more adaptable to future adverse events) and also sustainable (e.g. ensuring future
generations can survive and thrive) over the long term.
Reconciling Sustainability and Resilience

The definitions given here suggest that sustainability and resilience are not one and the same; rather
they are inter- dependently linked. The definitions also imply that a sustainable community can
only be sustainable if it holds some degree of resilience. This is particularly reflected in the
definition by the UN Commission on Sustainable Development [24] which suggests that
“Sustainable development… cannot be successful without enabling societies to be resilient to
natural hazards”.

Christchurch – A resilient and sustainable city? Link between Resilience and Sustainability

The Darfield earthquake of magnitude 7.1 occurred on 4 September 2010. The main Darfield
earthquake was followed by a series of aftershocks, many of which occurred close to
Christchurch City. On 22 February 2011 at 12.51 p.m. a shallow aftershock of magnitude 6.3
occurred near Lyttleton and Christchurch. Unfortunately, this severe midday aftershock resulted
in185 people losing their life, and in many serious injuries. Much of the CBD was severely
damaged in the earthquake and was cordoned off for months and years afterwards. Infrastructure
was hit hard, with transport, electricity, water and sewerage systems disrupted. Rock falls
occurred in the Port Hills. Aftershocks continued to occur after 22 February, with aftershocks on
13 June and 23 December 2011 again causing issues with liquefaction.

Following the initial Darfield earthquake on 4 September 2010 the recovery process began. In
the following days and weeks, people re-engaged with their social networks at a local level to
help each other through the effects of the earthquake. People provided emotional support, shared
meals and assisted each other in the clean-up. Liquefied material was swiftly cleared into piles by
volunteer community members (e.g. Student Army, Farmy Army) and taken away to dumping
sites by the city services. Damaged buildings were identified by building assessors, and decisions
were made about whether to demolish or repair these buildings. Insurance companies began
assessing damaged property and possessions and starting to settle claims. Local authorities held
discussions about what the earthquake had meant for settlements and began to think about
planning for the future. For the most part the recovery was focused on reinstating the status quo
(with some minor improvements if possible) and getting everyone back to normal as quickly as
possible.
In Christchurch City during the Canterbury earthquake sequence, the dynamics between
resilience and sustainability were certainly evident. People considered themselves adaptable and
resilient after the Darfield earthquake, and undertook repairs with the aim of recovering to a
‘normal’ state as quickly as possible. In a land use context this meant clearing away the
liquefaction, re- pairing existing buildings, and thinking about reconstructing seriously damaged
buildings in a similar way and in the same area.

It was only after the Christchurch earthquake that people realized this short term view of resilience
was not in fact sustainable in the long term. Far more visionary land-use planning solutions were
required to achieve long term sustainability and greater resilience. Thus projects such as the red
and green zoning, Christchurch CBD recovery plan, and insurance initiatives were undertaken to
try to tackle this. The red zoning and retirement of areas of liquefiable land and land in the Port
Hills will ensure that risks are reduced in the future, and that communities do not continue to live
there in an unsustainable way. In a land use sense, the remaining communities are then considered
sustainable in the long term.
Introduction

Green building rating systems such as Leadership in Energy and Environ-mental Design (LEED)
developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and Green Globes by Green Building
Initiative, have been used to ensure improved sustainability in construction and development for
more than a decade, and are among the most widely used sustainability assessment systems in the
world. Despite this, even these frameworks have been criticized by scholars including Plumblee
& Klotz [5] and Champagne & Aktas [6] for not including hazard resilience indicators. New York
City, for example, with one of the largest collection of LEED-certified green buildings in the
world, suffered more than $19 billion in losses as a result of Hurricane Sandy [7]. As reported by
Zolli and Healy, these green buildings are “designed to generate lower environ-mental impacts,
but not to respond to the impacts of the environment”. However, recent years have seen a growing
interest in pushing the design standards beyond code minimum requirements in order to “achieve
targeted performance goals for resilient post-hazard functionality”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [2] reported sixteen weather and climate
disasters –including Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria– in 2017across the US with losses
exceeding $1 billion each. “These events resulted in the deaths of 362 people and had significant
economic effects [over 300 billion dollars] on the areas impacted” [2]. The number of
environmental and geophysical natural hazards are also predicted to go up due to the effect of
global climatic changes [27]. Whereas the core idea of sustainability is to reduce negative impacts
on the environment to avoid changes, resiliency is about adaptation to change [12].

Aim

The study presented here reviews the definition of sustainability and resilience and the relationship
between the two concepts. Additionally, we sought to provide evidence in the literature in support
or opposition to the combination of the two concepts, while also describing the challenges of
incorporating resilience indicators into sustainability assessment frameworks.

What is Sustainability?

Sustainability is defined by Leach et al. as “the capability of maintaining over indefinite periods
of time specified qualities of human well-being, social equity, and environmental integrity”. This
variation is also alluded to by Lew et al. [19] who describe the main goals of sustainable
development as “protecting and maintaining natural and cultural re-sources for the future and
mitigating change” and highlight some tangible efforts of sustainability such as “reducing the
consumption of carbon and other natural resources, increasing biodiversity, protecting tangible
heritage artifacts, and revitalizing intangible cultural traditions”. The U.S.Green Building Council
(1993) also identifies sustainable building practices and design considerations that could be
summarized into the LEED categories: location and transportation, sustainable site, water
efficiency, energy and atmosphere, material and resources, indoor environmental quality,
innovation, and regional priority.

What is Resilience?

The Resilience Alliance (RA) describes resilience as "the capacity of a social-ecological system
to absorb or withstand perturbations and other stressors such that the system remains within the
same regime, essentially maintaining its structure and functions.

The Resilient Design Institute (RDI), states its mission as “advancing sustainability through a
focus on resilience in our buildings and communities”. RDI defines resilience as “the ability to
adapt to changing conditions and to maintain or regain functionality and vitality in the face of
stress or disturbance. It is the capacity to bounce back after a disturbance or interruption”. The
Green Building Initiative (GBI), is also another organization that advocates sustainable thinking
and application of green building best practices. The GBI's [51] definition of resilience is “the
ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse
events.” To contribute to the resiliency of the built environment, the GBI promotes the Green
Globes which provides third-party certification of green building best practices and resilience
consideration

Resilience in Government Regulations

The concept has gained popularity in both international and national politics [35]. A good example
is the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), developed by the United Nations International
Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR). HFA came out of the World Conference held in Kobe,
Hyogo, Japan in 2005 to substantially reduce disaster losses by 2015 by building the resilience of
nations and communities to disasters [36].The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, also
defines resilience as: “The capacity of systems to cope with a hazardous event or trend or
disturbance, responding or reorganizing in ways that maintain their essential function, identity,
and structure, while also maintaining the capacity for adaptation, learning, and transformation”
[37]. Resilience has also gained ground in policy documents at the national level and was officially
recognized in the US national doctrine in2010. From the administrative and political perspective,
it was a part of the 2010 National Security Strategy to meet the full range of threats and hazards
including “terrorism, natural disasters, large-scale cyber at-tacks, and pandemics”. The National
Security Strategy of the United States defines resilience as “the ability to adapt to changing
conditions and prepare for, withstand, and rapidly recover from disruption”. The Obama
Administration issued two Presidential Policy Directives, PPD-8 and PPD-21 to put resilience into
effect on a national level. PPD-8 National Preparedness (2011) sees catastrophic natural disasters
as a threat to national security and defines resilience as, “the ability to adapt to changing conditions
and withstand and rapidly recover from disruption due to emergencies” [37]. PPD-21 Critical
Infrastructure Security and Resilience (2013) gives a revised definition of resilience as, “the ability
to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and withstand and recover rapidly from
disruptions, [including] deliberate attacks, accidents, or naturally occurring threats or incidents”

Resilience in Non-Governmental Organizations

In addition to the policies developed by the federal government, some private organizations also
took action in response to the potential chaos brought on by shifting climate conditions. For
example, the United Nations Development Programme (2005) as part of the United Nations’
mission to maintain international order, defines resilience as“the tendency to maintain integrity
when subject to disturbance”. Also, the Resilience Alliance (RA) -developed in 1999 from The
Resilience Network-emphasizes resilience as an essential property of the linked social-ecological
systems. The Resilience Alliance (RA) has contributed with insights on resilience in social-
ecological systems, developed resilience thinking and also linked it to development agendas [37].
The Relationship between Sustainable Development and Resilience

Several studies indicate the lack of a conceptual framework for consolidating the two concepts
together [48]. While many consider sustainability and resilience as slightly nuanced perspectives
on the same phenomenon, others see them as distinct conceptual paradigms with sustain-ability's
conservation goals being in opposition to the adaptation goals of resilience [19]. Lew et al. [19]
link this confusion between the concepts with two reasons. Firstly, the lack of a solid definition
and conceptualization of the two terms; and secondly, the fact that the two concepts share some
essential assumptions, methods, and goals such as life-cycle analysis, structural analysis, and
socioeconomic analysis [49].Also, both concepts focus on survivability or as [51] argues, on the
persistence of a system over time, under normal operating conditions and in response to
disturbances. Their joint connection to global political trends, such as climate change mitigation,
link them to the development of global frameworks and multilateral agendas [51]. To examine the
feasibility of creating a unified framework for sustain-ability and resilience, the relationship
between the two needs to be investigated.

The second group of literature sees resilience as a necessary precondition for sustainability and
sustainable development. Among these, are studies by Arrow et al. [53] which point out that "[...]
economic activities are sustainable only if the life-support ecosystems upon which they depend are
resilient", or Perrings [54] stating that "[a]development strategy is not sustainable if it is not
resilient". Lebel et al.[55] also argue that "[s]trengthening the capacity of societies to manage
resilience is critical to effectively pursuing sustainable development." Others believe “for a
building in a hazard-prone zone, one cannot talk of sustainability if the structure does not show
adequate resilience against natural hazards” [56].

Developing an Integrated Sustainability and Resilience Framework

Achour et al. [27] studied ten international sustainability assessment tools and reported the
Japanese CASBEE® and the German DGNB as the only tools in which resilience has been
integrated. They also suggested CASBEE® to be used as a model for incorporating sustainability
and resilience as it fulfills the required engagement of technical, strategic, social and political
stakeholders. Additionally, Champagne & Aktas (2016) studies the existing overlaps between
resilient design principles and the LEED v4. Their research revealed that the LEED v4 does not
address about half of the identified principles. To fill this significant gap, they recommended
prioritizing regional resilience credits that correspond to the nature of the hazards in a given
location.

The literature also indicates a set of tensions between sustainability and resilience that may stand
in the way of their integration (see Fig. 8).These include aiming for different goals, having different
assumptions of normality, different approaches in pursuing their objectives, having different
research focuses, and putting emphasis on different values.

Discussion

Despite acknowledging such a close bond between two concepts, the research indicates a lack of
a unifying framework for sustainability and resilience. Some previous studies have recommended
the integration of sustainability and resilience in building design and assessment, and claimed this
integration serves to “(1) conserve future resources, (2) protect investment in sustainable structures
and infra-structure, (3) ensure that sustainable developments continue to function for their design
life and continue to reap the benefits of sustainable design, and (4) preserve the stability of social
and economic networks within communities” [56].

A set of challenges between the two concepts has also been revealed and may obstruct this
integration (i.e., having different goals, different approaches in achieving their goals, having
different views of equilibrium as well as focusing on different values). Some opponents of
resilience argue that resilience does not always imply a normatively positive nature or a desired
state, because a system could be highly resilient without achieving sustainability goals, e.g., system
states that decrease social welfare, such as polluted water supplies or dictator-ships, can also be
highly resilient [55]. Also, the effectiveness of one resilience strategy could be at the expense of
total efficiency, and consequently the sustainability of the building [60]. Therefore, making some
compromises seems necessary when some of the sustainability or resilience objectives are in
conflict with one another.

Sustainability maintains its dominant role as the preferred development paradigm for most policy
and program actions taken by governments, communities, and businesses today [63](Fig. 10). And
whether we like it or not, a movement has already been initiated to incorporate resilience measures
into the sustainable development framework. For example, the USGBC formally adopted the
resilience consensus standard, RELi, to become a global rating system under the USGBC's rubric.
As a product of Green build 2017 Conference, RELi is a comprehensive rating system that works
synergistically with LEED to better withstand shocks and stressors like extreme weather, sea level
rise, social and economic volatility, and resource shortages [64].

Conclusion

As the concept of resilience is becoming increasingly important in sustainable development, some

concerns are arising around the idea of combining resilience and sustainable assessment
frameworks. This study explored definitions and relationships between the concepts of
sustainability and resilience, as well as the challenges of establishing a building assessment
framework to embrace the two. Given the complexity surrounding the issues of sustainability and
resilience and the differences between their definitions, methodology, and areas of applicability,
proposing a single framework to fully integrate the two concepts is very challenging. Clearly, there
is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to incorporating resilience standards
into the sustainability agenda. The combined framework must be tailored and customized to fit the
case-by-case nature of projects, based upon the location, climate, and type of natural hazards to
which the area is vulnerable. The integration process also requires an active involvement of
different stakeholders in all stages. Furthermore, one cannot simply delve into the sustainability
assessment frameworks such as LEED and search for indicators of resilience, because those
assessment systems are not primarily designed to include resilience indicators. Therefore, in order
for sustainability assessment systems to integrate resilience indicators, development of new
systems or a thorough refinement of current systems seem inevitable. Future research work will
focus on the context of existing sustainability and resilience strategies and assessment tools to
properly conceptualize and develop a combined coherent framework
5. Discussion and Conclusion
The concepts of resilience and sustainability have been discussed and compared. The application
of these concepts to the design and management of infrastructure systems in general, and to bridges
in particular, has been investigated. Even though this paper is a first conceptual attempt to provide
a unified perspective, several conclusions can be drawn:

• Resilience and sustainability are two paramount complementary attributes of the infrastructure.
While sustainability addresses the time-continuous impacts on the economy, society, and
environment that the infrastructure certainly will distribute over its entire service life, resilience
focuses on the large impact that the service failure of the infrastructure can have in the case of
extreme events. Only the combination of both concepts pro- vides a truly comprehensive
assessment of the quality of the infrastructure.

• In some cases, the pursuit of resilience can be in conflict with the pursuit of sustainability. In
such scenarios, a complete analysis of all the possible outcomes of each decision is of utmost
importance for decision makers. Both resilience and sustainability are deemed necessary for the
infrastructure of our society and any technical and political decision should aim at achieving the
best possible balance, with minimum compromise.

• The developments of resilience and sustainability in civil engineering are slowly converging.
Whereas resilience focused on infrastructure and communities since the beginning, sustain-
ability originally was applied mostly to buildings and products. However, a few institutions
around the globe recently have been working on infrastructure sustainability assessment
systems. It is becoming clear that for infrastructure components (e.g., bridges, roads, and
lifelines) sustainability also should be assessed considering a broad regional scale that accounts
for entire transportation networks and communities, as is customary for resilience analyses.
Moreover, in infrastructure sustainability assessment systems, the idea of incorporating risks
can be found. These approaches can be considered as a first interface between the domain of
hazards investigated by resilience and sustainability.

• One of the biggest challenges for the assessment of both sustainability and resilience is the
collection of the required data and the computation of truly quantitative metrics. The field of
resilience appears more advanced in terms of quantitative analyses and indicators for
infrastructures. Sustainability assessment systems have promoted a culture of more thorough
 data collection and management. Also in this sense, cooperation among the two fields and their
experts is likely to lead to mutual exchanges and significant benefits.

• Finally, resilience, sustainability, and their combination should be analyzed with a probabilistic
perspective. In fact, both resilience and sustainability measure the consequences of the decision
associated with the infrastructure. Sustainability focuses on almost certain consequences that
are distributed over the life cycle and can be predicted with good approximation. Resilience
considers large consequences associated with events with a small probability of occurrence. In
this light, strong similarities with the concept of “risk” appear evident. An extension of the risk
theory paradigm for infrastructure systems can lead to a solid and systematic unification of
resilience and sustainability.