Retrospective Sustainability and Resilience: Complementary Concepts for Managing Systems

Abstract

No matter the region, locality, or purpose, any given water resource system represents a node within a network of built, natural, and socioeconomic systems. Changes or disturbances to a single node can propagate across these networks of systems, but proper management of disturbances can mitigate impact to a systems performance levels. Effective management of disturbances will be required for the system to persist and function far into the future. Resilience and sustainability are systems management concepts that collectively and holistically address response to disturbance, including the long-term persistence of a system. The goal of this technical note is to compare and clarify the utility and complementarity of the concepts of sustainability and resilience, specifically within the context of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) water resources mission areas. To do so, a brief review and discussion of the relationship between resilience and sustainability systems management concepts is conducted, concluding with the proposal that a combined approach is needed in order to apply both to their greatest effect in the context of water resources management.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2019
Accession Number
AD1069283

Entities

People

  • Anne C. Baker
  • Heather Morgan
  • Katherine F. Chambers
  • S. Kyle McKay

Organizations

  • Engineer Research and Development Center

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Engineered Resilient Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Climate Change
  • Climate Change Adaptation
  • Commerce
  • Engineers
  • Environment
  • Environmental Protection
  • Flood Control
  • Floods
  • Law
  • Life Cycles
  • Reliability
  • Sea Level
  • Sea Level Rise
  • Storm Surges
  • Systems Approach
  • Systems Management
  • Water Resources

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Economics
  • Psychological Intervention/Treatment for Stress, Anxiety, PTSD, and Related Emotional and Cognitive Health Symptoms.
  • Systems Analysis and Design