Research Counts

Cracked roads, fallen powerlines, contaminated water—after a disaster a community can become unsafe and even unrecognizable to its own residents. Infrastructure systems are so entrenched in our daily routines that they are often undervalued until they become unavailable.

Improving infrastructure resilience using various methods—enhanced construction materials, smart technologies, flexible modular designs—can prevent physical system failures when disaster strikes. But infrastructure resilience is not only related to physical systems.

Resilient infrastructure can also minimize the social impacts of disaster. For instance, a collapsed bridge or impassable transit line can keep children out of school or adults from work, negatively affecting education and the economy. Conversely, when infrastructure remains intact, roads remain passable, the power stays on, and drinking water remains safe.

What Is Infrastructure Resilience?

Infrastructure resilience in engineering refers to the ability of infrastructure systems to adapt, absorb, or recover from disruptive events such as disasters through principles of rapidity, resourcefulness, redundancy, and robustness. In 2023, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction recommended the use of transdisciplinary collaboration approaches to protect the public from future hazards. Such efforts involve engaging with the public and coordinating information and expertise.

Protecting people is the ultimate goal of civil engineering, but in practice, people and their experiences can be left out of the design, creation, and maintenance of infrastructure. Standard management practices often rely on quantitative measures, such as life cycle and cost-benefit analyses, while focusing less on how people interact with infrastructure systems and how well they support us.

Holistic infrastructure resilience, which couples engineering measures with transdisciplinary collaborative approaches, is especially important during disasters. Scholars have consistently found that certain communities disproportionately experience the loss of critical infrastructure services during disasters. When such systems fail—often in marginalized areas—they can cause physical as well as lasting social damage to neighborhoods, homes, and people.

Four Types of Infrastructure Equity

There has been a failure to recognize the important role that equity plays in infrastructure resilience. As a result, the needs of those most affected by disasters can be overlooked, perpetuating and worsening already existing inequities in safety, access to resources, and individual and collective well-being. Embedding equity into resilience planning strengthens physical infrastructure systems and supports more inclusive and effective community recovery to ensure no one is left behind.

Guided by environmental justice and disaster research, the following four dimensions can be used to understand how equity and infrastructure fit together.

Distributional-Demographic Equity. This dimension examines the equitable allocation of infrastructure benefits and risks and how underlying social and economic circumstances influence people’s ability to withstand disruptions. For instance, my research on hurricane impacts showed that lower-income and racial minority households faced greater difficulties, lived in areas with less-maintained infrastructure, and experienced longer service restoration times. Similarly, families with children experience greater hardship during infrastructure outages because of the stress of caregiving when basic services, such as water and communication, are disrupted. Applying distributional-demographic equity would require that the human dimensions of infrastructure are considered more fully in the planning and design phases.

Distributional-Spatial Equity. This dimension explores how geographic location and systemic race and class isolation can influence exposure to infrastructure loss. For instance, rural areas can face heightened risk caused by limited access to their communities and fewer redundant systems. This was the case in Appalachia during Hurricane Helene when landslides and flooding rendered key roadways impassable and delayed the delivery of critical supplies and the restoration of infrastructure. Restoration and retrofit strategies that consider network performance and social impacts are ways that have been proposed to address distributional-spatial inequities in situations like these.

Capacity Equity. This dimension considers the ability of communities to prepare, cope, and recover. For example, lower-income households are typically less able to afford alternatives to infrastructure, such as power generators or water storage tanks. Instead, at-risk populations must be adaptable. In Winter Storm Uri, many people used candles, flashlights, and battery-operated lanterns for lighting. While some had bottled water or stored tap water, other residents collected water from nearby lakes and creeks or melted snow for their water needs. Planning to meet the needs of those with limited capacity—such as providing supplies, warming stations, or portable health clinics—can help communities establish more equitable outcomes.

Procedural Equity. This dimension relates to inclusivity and fairness in decision-making processes. Allowing stakeholders to actively participate in how infrastructure systems are designed and maintained can improve policy planning and weave equity into actionable plans. For instance, a recent study found that high school students assessed the state of their drainage infrastructure within 74% data accuracy of expert stakeholders. Understanding the strengths and weakness of their infrastructure systems can help community members participate in reviews, potentially speeding up the process. Interactive workshops and knowledge-sharing initiatives can further foster procedural equity.

Looking Ahead

Future research and practices of equity in infrastructure resilience must consider how the actions of today will impact future generations. Currently, our aging infrastructure systems, which are further strained by increasing natural hazard threats, are not equipped to meet the needs or ensure the rights of future generations. To do so will require ingenuity and a transdisciplinary approach that actively addresses inequities through resource allocation, better restoration and policy implementation, and meaningful opportunities for community involvement.