Abstract for:Exploring the interconnections between infrastructure and human wellbeing following extreme disruptions

In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, planning efforts have centered around recovering and rebuilding Puerto Rico’s infrastructure in way that would offer greater resilience to similar events in the future. As planning efforts increasingly focus on enhancing resilience, particularly community resilience, there is a clear impetus for developing a greater understanding of resilience from a dynamic, systemic perspective. This work seeks to offer a physically and dynamically consistent understanding of resilience in regards to extreme disruption events such as Hurricane Maria’s impact on Puerto Rico. Adopting a human capabilities framework that relates infrastructure to human capabilities (Clark, Seager, Chester, 2018), this work in progress explores the relationship between infrastructure capital and community resilience along a number of human wellbeing indicators. Recognizing that infrastructure helps facilitate the achievement of different human needs at different time scales (e.g. acute needs such as food and water as well as higher-order needs such as interconnection and social capital), this research seeks to understand the interconnections between these dynamics operating at short and long-term time scales. In doing so, it offers a means of better understanding the dynamic nature of community resilience following major disasters.