Risk and resilience of social infrastructure systems in a changing climate

Infrastructure systems provide essential services on which modern societies rely for supporting societal well-being, economic prosperity, and quality of life (Hickford et al., 2018). Yet, extreme weather events pose serious risks to infrastructure systems, and, in this time of intensifying natural disasters and climate change, infrastructure systems are under growing pressure to deliver resilient and reliable services (Hallegatte et al., 2019).

Disruptions in infrastructure services caused by natural disasters place social wellbeing and economic stability at risk due to failed infrastructure provisions (Pant et al., 2017). As climate change increases the magnitude and frequency of extreme natural hazard events, infrastructure will face additional stress (Forzieri et

al., 2018) and the increasing incidents of infrastructure failures could become common (Pant et al., 2017). Under this context of heightened likelihoods of extreme weather and withinfrastructure investments at an all-time high (Thacker et al., 2019), ensuring the resilience of infrastructure systems is becoming an increasing urgent task (Hall et al., 2019). This is particularly important for social infrastructure due to the vital role it has in both economic

growth and social development (Gnade et al., 2017). The term social infrastructure (SI) has become a key focus of geographical research, yet the term

has been pulled in a diverse set of ways (Latham & Layton, 2022), affecting the framing and direction of the conversation. For this research proposal, I will use the third definition outlined by Latham and Layton (2022), which considers SI as infrastructures of social care. Under this definition, SI is a subset of the infrastructure sector which includes assets that support and accommodate social services in particular.

This includes spaces such as hospitals, schools, and community spaces like public libraries. Social infrastructure is essential in supporting a safe and healthy community to maintain and promote its quality of life (Lo et al., 2015). Furthermore, there has been increasing recognition of the value and importance of social infrastructure specifically in responding to and recovering from shocks and disasters (Fraser et al., 2022).

A clear example is that victims from these events will seek life-saving care and treatment, comfort, and relief at hospitals (Chaffee & Oster, 2006). Another example is schools, which are an epicentre of recovery after disasters, as they often provide residents with access to food and shelter, as well as medical and psychological resources (Lai et al., 2019; Mutch, 2015).

Additionally, the role of public libraries during natural disasters has also been found to be vital for helping impacted community members fill out E-government forms, such as FEMA aid applications, by both providing assistance and the computers, electricity, and Wi-Fi needed (Young, 2018). These examples highlight some of the reasons for which it is vital to ensure that social infrastructures are functional and accessible during and after extreme weather events.

However, adequately capturing social infrastructure risks is complex since social infrastructure is not only the sum of their physical assets but also their interdependence on institutions and other critical infrastructure systems. Institutions form a vital social element that creates interdependencies in systems and therefore "deserve special attention in efforts to map the vulnerability and resilience of complex, multi-infrastructure systems" (Gim & Miller, 2022).

This is particularly important for relatively people-intensive social infrastructures as compared to capital-intensive economic infrastructure.