What Can The Engineering for Climate Extremes Partnership Do For Global Resilience?

Abstract:

ECEP is an interdisciplinary partnership that brings together academia, industry, commerce, societal groups and government to develop robust, well-communicated predictions and advice on the impacts of weather and climate extremes using cutting-edge science. A feature of the partnership is the manner in which basic and applied research and development is conducted in direct collaboration with the end user. ECEP was formally launched at the AGU Fall Meeting in December 2014, and has gained rapid momentum in the subsequent year.

Integral to the ECEP approach to resilience is the concept of ‘Graceful Failure’. By acknowledging that all designs will fail at some level, and instead adopting flexible designs that combine engineering or network strengths with a plan for efficient, systematic failure and avoid delayed recovery. Such an approach enables optimal planning for both known and future scenarios, and their assessed uncertainty.

This presentation will use the Boulder and North Colorado floods of September 2013 as a case study of how Graceful Failure improves resilience to extreme weather.