Incorporating Socioeconomic Metrics in Civil Engineering Projects: The Resilience Perspective

Abstract

This paper explores the role of socioeconomic metrics in the design, planning and operations of civil engineering projects within the specific context of resilience. The inclusion of resilience analysis and design is consistent with the goals of the ASCE Infrastructure Resilience Division (IRD) and related emerging standards and duties of civil engineers. This paper focuses on the practices in design, planning, construction, and operation of civil engineering projects that can deliver social value to communities and offers a set of socioeconomic metrics for consistently measuring these benefits. Socioeconomic metrics benchmark benefits including safety, social equity, health and well-being, prosperity, cohesion and inclusivity, and mobility and accessibility during the whole life-cycle of a project. A review of metrics is presented and expanded with an emphasis on the need for contextual narrative support to their application. The aim is to establish further the use of metrics in civil engineering projects to set values at the community level and formulate them to justify and rationalize resilience interventions and strategies. The reviewed concepts and categorized project metrics can be used by a range of actors in addition to civil engineers, such as urban planners, policy makers, or regional developers, preferably in a collaborative manner across these groups, particularly to help prioritize the investment of resources and funds to achieve resilience. Three project examples at differing levels of complexity are presented to conceptually illustrate the approaches outlined herein.