Defining and Understanding Disaster Resilience for

Individual Types of Infrastructures

Presentation at Homeland Security Symposium

Safe, Secure, and Sustainable Facilities

Thursday, May 13, 2010National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC

By Mark E. Steiner P.E.TISP Vice Chair ACEC Senior Policy Director

Who is TISP? Established in 2001 by 11 professional and

technical organizations and federal agencies. Leads public and private sector collaboration that

advances the practice and policies of infrastructure security and resiliency to sustain the nation’s resources.

Collectively, TISP represents nearly two million individuals with organizations that are involved in the planning, design, construction, and operation of infrastructure.

Primary objective is to create a collaborative and coordinated environment to enable a more secure and resilient infrastructure.

Our mission is to lead public and private sector collaboration that advances the practice and policy of infrastructure security and resiliency.

“Improving Resilience of the Nation’s Infrastructure”

2010 Performance Objectives Develop a Progression Plan Facilitating Resilience as a Function of the National Homeland Security Strategy, National Response Framework, and National Disaster Recovery Framework

Develop educational tools promoting resilience concepts

Develop new strategic partnerships - risk sciences, standards setting communities, and emergency management

2010 Progression Plan Three Programs supporting the National

Homeland Security Strategy and the National Frameworks:

Thought Leadership at the Intersection of Homeland Security, Emergency Management, and Risk Science.

Update the Regional Disaster Resilience Guide and develop a new Critical Infrastructure Resilience Guide.

Incorporate Resilience in the Whole Infrastructure/Build Criteria.

 

Recommendations on Infrastructure Resilience Management

Common definition of “resilience.” Education programs on resilience. Common resilience management framework, applied

consistently. Unified national resilience goal. Consistent methods for identifying core functions

and interdependencies for risk and resilience management.

Consistent methods for prioritizing infrastructure investments.

Incentivize infrastructure owners and communities to pursue resilience policies and improvements.

Aging Infrastructure Impedes Resilience Implementing a resilience strategy requires that

the United States also address its aging infrastructure.

TISP offers a definition of resilience and a framework for prioritizing infrastructure resilience needs

Public and private stakeholders can more efficiently apply their resources.

Definition of “Resilience”

Resilience is a capacity to absorb or mitigate the impact of hazard events while maintaining and restoring critical services.

Optimizing resilience requires identifying and understanding critical operations

and functions, anticipating impacts of multi-hazard events,preparing for and adapting to manage a crisis or

disruption as it unfolds, creating capacity to rapidly return to and/or

reconstitute a more resilient “normal” operation, tolerating loss of some capacity for the duration

of the response effort to a disruption, and partnering through communications,

coordination and collaboration.

Critical Functions/ServicesThe first step to achieving resilience is to

identify and agree on the functions that must continue after a hazard event.

Includes individual and community, private-sector and public-sector activities or operations in a facility, area, or region.

Continuity of critical operations defines the built environment and interdependencies that are vital.

Impacts of hazard events Analyze potential disruption to critical

functions and interdependencies

Identify needed alterations to base and interdependent infrastructure to achieve resilience

Establish cost and schedule for each alteration

Decision makingEstablish priorities for needed

alterationsDetermine available resources to

address alterationsIdentify alternative uses of limited

resources Select between alternatives and cost-

effective use of limited resources based on impact, benefits, and acceptable risk

THANK YOU!Presenter: Mark Steiner - msteiner@acec.org

The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP) www.tisp.org

For general information about TISP contact Bill Anderson

wanderson@tisp.org