Critical need to embrace and adapt resilience-reframing critical infrastructure connectivity, and disaster governance

This paper examines the need to reframe critical infrastructure resilience by positioning bridges as “transport structures, public service platforms, emergency lifelines, and spatial-planning decisions” within disaster governance. Drawing on research literature and examples of hazards including floods, storms, landslides, earthquakes, wildfires and heatwaves, the authors argue that bridge resilience should move beyond conventional Bridge Management Systems towards “Bridge Resilience Systems”. The paper explores infrastructure connectivity through systems thinking, considering engineering, land-use planning, emergency response, ecosystem management, climate adaptation, social equity and long-term investment.

The authors argue that resilience planning should assess “the complete connectivity system rather than the bridge alone” and emphasize that bridges are part of wider social, ecological and governance systems. Key recommendations include establishing bridge resilience as a formal infrastructure objective, identifying strategically critical bridges, protecting natural infrastructure, designing for exceedance and rapid recovery, building redundancy into critical networks, strengthening cross-border coordination, and reforming economic appraisal. The paper concludes that authorities should transition “from managing bridges as isolated assets to governing them as resilient, connected, and socially essential systems.”