Volume 40, Issue 8 p. 1509-1537
Perspective

Toward General Principles for Resilience Engineering

David J. Yu

Corresponding Author

David J. Yu

Lyles School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

Department of Political Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

Center for the Environment, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

Address correspondence to David J. Yu, Lyles School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University, 550 Stadium Mall Dr., HAMP G175D, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA; tel: 765-496-0577; davidyu@purdue.edu

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Michael L. Schoon

Michael L. Schoon

School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

Center for Behavior, Institutions & the Environment, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

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Jason K. Hawes

Jason K. Hawes

Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

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Seungyoon Lee

Seungyoon Lee

Brian Lamb School of Communication, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

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Jeryang Park

Jeryang Park

School of Urban and Civil Engineering, Hongik University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

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P. Suresh C. Rao

P. Suresh C. Rao

Department of Political Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

Department of Agronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

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Laura K. Siebeneck

Laura K. Siebeneck

Department of Public Administration, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA

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Satish V. Ukkusuri

Satish V. Ukkusuri

Lyles School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

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First published: 14 May 2020
Citations: 35

Abstract

Maintaining the performance of infrastructure-dependent systems in the face of surprises and unknowable risks is a grand challenge. Addressing this issue requires a better understanding of enabling conditions or principles that promote system resilience in a universal way. In this study, a set of such principles is interpreted as a group of interrelated conditions or organizational qualities that, taken together, engender system resilience. The field of resilience engineering identifies basic system or organizational qualities (e.g., abilities for learning) that are associated with enhanced general resilience and has packaged them into a set of principles that should be fostered. However, supporting conditions that give rise to such first-order system qualities remain elusive in the field. An integrative understanding of how such conditions co-occur and fit together to bring about resilience, therefore, has been less clear. This article contributes to addressing this gap by identifying a potentially more comprehensive set of principles for building general resilience in infrastructure-dependent systems. In approaching this aim, we organize scattered notions from across the literature. To reflect the partly self-organizing nature of infrastructure-dependent systems, we compare and synthesize two lines of research on resilience: resilience engineering and social-ecological system resilience. Although some of the principles discussed within the two fields overlap, there are some nuanced differences. By comparing and synthesizing the knowledge developed in them, we recommend an updated set of resilience-enhancing principles for infrastructure-dependent systems. In addition to proposing an expanded list of principles, we illustrate how these principles can co-occur and their interdependencies.

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