Future Cities: Building Infrastructure Resilience
Lloyd’s and Arup have joined forces to produce the Future Cities: Building Infrastructure Resilience research report. This comprehensive study examines how designers, investors, city officials, and insurers can collaborate to create resilient infrastructure systems that can withstand a variety of modern risks.
Today’s urban areas face an unprecedented range of threats, including rapidly emerging cyber threats and terrorism. The rising costs of disasters are a significant concern for both the public sector and the insurance industry, with direct losses from disasters in the past decade estimated at US $1.4 trillion. While risk management remains crucial, there is a growing emphasis on building resilience as a complementary strategy to manage infrastructure risk and uncertainty.
Arup, a global design and engineering firm, has partnered with Lloyd’s, the world’s specialist insurance marketplace, to undertake this multi-disciplinary research project. The report outlines three key pathways for enhancing city infrastructure resilience against shocks and stresses:
- Prevent Failure: Ensure that infrastructure systems can endure both direct and indirect impacts of disasters.
- Expedite Recovery: Enable infrastructure systems to become operational as quickly as possible after experiencing stress or collapse.
- Transform Performance: Aim for a new and improved state of infrastructure performance post-recovery.
The report includes case studies and practical recommendations for infrastructure planning, design, and operation. It also delves into the insurance sector’s potential role in fostering collective efforts to build city resilience. In addition to the main report, four sector-specific reports focus on resilience in transport, energy, water, and ICT infrastructure.
By providing these insights and recommendations, the Future Cities report aims to guide stakeholders in developing infrastructure that not only withstands current challenges but also adapts and evolves to meet future demands.
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