11 August 2005
Specialists Note Vulnerability to Infrastructure Failures
New Zealand needs to achieve a paradigm shift in the way major infrastructure is planned and managed if it wants to have
world class networks that are resilient under pressure, experts warn.
Speaking after an international conference in Rotorua, specialists in infrastructure resilience say New Zealand should
focus on improving the performance of interconnected systems such as transport, energy, telecommunication and financial
services.
Dr George Hooper, Executive Director of the Centre for Advanced Engineering (CAE), says technology is a double-edged
sword. “Many of our most vital services, such as EFTPOS, border control and traffic management, have become highly
complex networks which depend on each other,” he says, “and yet our level of planning does not acknowledge their
inter-dependence.”
He says the two-day gathering of practitioners for Resilient Infrastructure 2005 has underlined the need to develop new
strategies to make the built and human infrastructure more resilient in the event of disruption.
“New Zealand needs to define infrastructure far more broadly so that communities can be empowered to deal with adverse
events themselves.”
Hooper says greater resilience can be achieved through a range of responses, including longer planning horizons,
information sharing protocols, and planning for inter-operability. He says specialists in infrastructure resilience
advocate a top-down approach, through more integrated policy and regulation, and also a bottom-up approach which allows
communities to develop local solutions for recovery in the event of a disaster.
“We want to see network owners and planners thinking in terms of 30-year plans, rather than five years, and we want to
see far more collaboration among policy makers in both central and local government. One of the downsides of technology
becoming so pervasive is that infrastructure development becomes increasingly specialised, which results in expertise
being driven deeper into silos which are more and more narrow. This in turn is affecting our ability to collaborate and
be adaptive in the event of a technical failure or a natural disaster.”
Hooper says there is now strong recognition, following this week’s forum, of the need to do things differently. A series
of workshops is planned for network owners and government agencies to begin exploring what structural changes are needed
to move resilience planning to the forefront of infrastructure asset management.
About Resilient Infrastructure 2005 Resilient Infrastructure 2005 (Rotorua, August 8-11 2005) is the first New Zealand
event to look at the ability of communities as a whole to survive disasters and network disruptions. It deals with
building resilience into our built and human infrastructure, including natural, economic and social capital.
About CAE CAE is an independent-think tank and research facilitator associated with the University of Canterbury and
funded by grants and sponsorships. CAE's mission is to advance social progress and economic growth for New Zealand
through broadening national understanding of emerging technologies and facilitating early adoption of advanced
technology solutions. www.caenz.com
ENDS