Management of critical infrastructures requires the assessment of its lifecycle performance attending to its performance both in regular service conditions, as well as when facing extreme events. Their post-event response is of extreme importance to the recovery of society itself, and thus, design toward resilience is a major concern for new infrastructures. However, managers deal with the question of how to promote resilience for already existing infrastructures based on current codes and management tools. Either due to climate changes or due to human interaction, extreme weather event frequency and intensity are presenting an increasing trend. These events may cause severe threats to the normal service and functioning of critical infrastructures, both at a local scale as well as at a network level. In this Special Issue, we solicit high-quality original research articles focused on the state-of-the-art techniques and methods employed in the design, management, and assessment of critical infrastructures’ resilience concerning extreme weather events. We welcome both theoretical and application papers of high technical standard across various disciplines, thus facilitating an awareness of techniques and methods in one area that may be applicable to other areas. We seek high-quality submissions of original research articles as well as review articles on all aspects related to critical infrastructure management that has the potential for practical application. Topics of interest include but are not limited to: Critical infrastructures related to transport, communication, electricity, water, and other supply and service infrastructures; New design and assessment of existing structures toward resilience; Quantification of extreme weather events influencing, directly and indirectly, the management of infrastructures; Recent case studies and reported infrastructures failures (i.e., lessons learned); Critical infrastructure safety and reliability and risk-informed decision making; Advanced numerical analysis techniques and simulation; Validations and verifications of the existing analysis techniques; Monitoring, surveillance, and field measurement methods; Advances in sustainable and resilient critical infrastructures; Socioeconomic aspects related to service disruption of critical infrastructures; Good practices in planning and designing protective measures as well as crisis response and recovery capabilities.
Keywords: resilience; critical infrastructures; extreme events; reliability; safety.