Developing Resilient Critical Public Infrastructure

 

Activities:

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• Develop an index to assess the critical importance of public infrastructure based on indicators such as economic importance, social importance, location in sensitive ecosystems, importance to vulnerable groups and communities, and use this to establish a priority ranking of assets and systems for strengthening.

• Assess the ranked critical public infrastructure to identify all vulnerabilities to climate change impacts and natural disasters.

• Geolocate all critical public and private infrastructure in a national GIS database with information on the vulnerabilities and the dependent populations and systems.

• Review infrastructure systems and networks to identify connections across transportation, energy, water, telecommunications, ports, hospitals and determine where these systems and networks can be strengthened and made more secure and resilient.

• Sensitize and educate infrastructure service providers, policy makers, engineers, architects, contractors, private sector and civil society leaders on approaches to resilience building in critical infrastructure assets and systems.

• Encourage a culture of maintenance of public and private infrastructure to extend the life span of these assets and to increase their safety and resilience.

 

Building Resilience into New Private Sector Investments

 

Activities:

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• Prohibit any investments in new infrastructure in places identified as ‘special disaster areas’.

• Undertake an environmental and social impact assessment to identify all possible impacts of the investment on the surrounding ecosystems, communities, citizens and associated livelihoods.

• Monitor and ensure that all necessary mitigative measures are put in place to address the issues or concerns raised by the environmental and social impact assessment.

• Undertake a hazard risk assessment to identify all possible vulnerabilities associated with the development or likely to occur as a result of the development and require that all requisite steps are taken to mitigate the identified risks.

• As much as possible, encourage new investments to pursue LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification.

• Undertake a water and sewerage study to determine the present and future demand that will be created for water and wastewater/sewerage services and ensure that these can be met.

• Ensure that new investments have adequate water storage capacity to meet the needs of the facility in the event of a disruption in the supply of water after a natural disaster.

• Require that all new investments adhere to the highest standards of energy efficiency

• Take all necessary steps to ensure that the development does not compromise the integrity of water sources (surface or groundwater).

• Require that construction of any new infrastructure meets the government-approved standards for resilience.