Dam and Levee Safety and Community Resilience: A Vision for Future Practice.

摘要

Late in 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, U.S. newspapers were filled with speculation as to whether New Orleans would continue to exist as a great and unique American city. Levee and floodwall failure had inundated large parts of the city and resulted in more than 1,500 deaths and catastrophic damage to property and the economy. In 2011, extreme amounts of precipitation, inadequate levees, and possible mismanagement of reservoirs contributed to widespread flooding around Bangkok, Thailand. More than 500 deaths have been associated with that flood, and the closing of more than 1,000 industrial facilities had severe repercussions for global supply chains in the electronics and automotive industries. These two incidents occurred half a world and 6 years apart, but they shared a set of facts: neither city was adequately prepared, had appropriate measures in place to mitigate damage once flooding occurred, or seemed able to recover quickly; and neither city proved particularly resilient in the face of what were somewhat foreseeable circumstances. Resilience has long been a major topic in the natural-hazard literature and is defined in this report as the ability of a system to absorb disturbance and quickly return to normal or a new normal while maintaining its identity and ability to function.