Abstract Manager

Climate hazards such as flooding, forest fires, and extreme heat have cascading and compounding impacts across interconnected networks. This is especially true in transportation infrastructure systems, where failure of one link in the network can have serious upstream and downstream consequences for the communities it serves.  The province of BC experienced this first hand during the November 2021 Pacific Northwest floods, when the damage to the road network coupled with the border restrictions due to the COVID pandemic resulted in major disruptions to the movement of people, goods, and services in western Canada.

To address the above, the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (BC MoTI) has been collaborating with Infrastructure Canada (INFC) on advancing systems-based approaches (SBAs) for climate-resilient infrastructure for the long-term recovery, rebuild, and response measures to ensure communities are prepared, protected, and resilient to climate change impacts. Systems thinking provides a framework that helps users identify the interconnections within and between individual system components, with a goal of simplifying complex systems into models that are more easily understood, or those which provide a more holistic view of the wider system. A systems-based approach (SBA) can be used to highlight complexities within one or more subsystem by mapping how changes to one system can result in impacts felt elsewhere (interdependencies), or by showing how an external event can cascade throughout a system and other connected systems.

To advance SBAs, BC MoTI and INFC retained Arcadis to develop a guidebook to teach users how to apply systems thinking in resilience assessments. The guidebook is scalable, flexible, and applicable to all infrastructure types, and revolves around a four-step process:

1. Understanding the System: teach the fundamental principles of systems thinking and train users in the creation of system maps.
2. Framing the Results: translate a complex system map into a framework compatible with standard climate risk assessment methods, such as the ISO 1409x series.
3. Performing a Climate Risk Assessment: with a methodology that integrates the output of the previous steps into a quantitative compound vulnerability indicator to account for the effect of interdependencies on asset’s climate vulnerability.
4. Identifying Gaps: in the process by providing techniques that can reveal additional risks or vulnerabilities.

This session will guide participants through the application of the guidebook and demonstrate its use through its application on a case study, to highlight the potential that systems thinking has to enhance resilience planning.