From infrastructure in a Covid-19 society to infrastructure development in the face of climate change, the first day of ISNGI 2021 promises to tackle complex and intractable challenges head-on.
Infrastructure that is not sustainable and resilient is susceptible to disruption with greater frequency, on a larger scale, with higher intensity, for longer durations and at a greater cost than its more sustainable and resilient counterparts. Yet not all strategic challenges and hazards are known (such as natural disasters) or are easily predictable (such as climate change), making preparedness of infrastructure systems a potentially uncertain and expensive undertaking.
Infrastructure plays a dual role: the infrastructure system itself must be sustainable and resilient, but it must also support economic, environmental and societal sustainability and resilience. Indeed, all aspects of a Nation’s economy, environment and society are enabled, either directly or indirectly, by infrastructure. National infrastructure with low sustainability and resilience jeopardises the short-term realisation of all national strategic objectives and risks initiating a long-term downward spiral in which the cumulative impacts of repeat disruptions undermine quality of life, reduce productivity and GDP, damage industry and investor confidence, impair tax revenues, undermine international competitiveness, and channel national investment away from long-term priorities into short-term responsive expenditure.
We welcome research contributions or special session proposals related to any of these issues or the following sub-themes.
Subthemes
- Systemic Infrastructure Resilience to Strategic Challenges
- Infrastructure development in the face of climate change
- Critical Infrastructure Resilience
- Infrastructure a Covid-19 world
- Infrastructure and the SDGs
- Urban community infrastructure projects
- UKCRIC Urban Observatories special session
- Infrastructure systems for a circular economy
- Multi-network simulations for dynamic evaluation of disaster preparedness policies
- The role of National Infrastructure in supporting sustainability and resilience
- Whole-systems perspectives on Resilience and sustainability
- Infrastructure and urban systems for one planet living
- Transformational infrastructure and urban systems for a changing world
- The role of infrastructure in a Net Zero economy
- The systemic impact on national Infrastructure of 1.5 – 4°C global warming
- Resilience and sustainability as interdependent emergent characteristics