The Quantification and Evolution of Resilience in Integrated Coastal Systems
Abstract
Integrated coastal systems are designed, constructed, and maintained to achieve navigation, storm damage reduction, and ecosystem restoration objectives. This report develops a generally applicable method to quantify the resilience of integrated coastal systems to disturbances such as coastal storms. In general, resilience is an ambiguous term that can mean different things in different contexts. This report emphasizes engineering resilience, which is the propensity of a system to resist functional impairments as a result of a disturbance and to recover a pre-disturbance level of functional performance following a disturbance. This report describes how this property of integrated coastal systems can be quantified in probabilistic terms, and how the resilience of a system can evolve over time in response to gradual changes in boundary conditions that occur over time scales that are much longer than the disturbance of interest, such as gradual changes in mean sea level. Coastal system processes that are influenced by sea level rise and may affect the resilience of integrated coastal systems are identified. The advantages and disadvantages of probabilistic and non-probabilistic indicators of resilience are discussed.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA570387
Entities
People
- Lyndell Z. Hales
- Martin T. Schultz
- S. Kyle McKay
Organizations
- Engineer Research and Development Center