Developing a Framework for Measuring Water Supply Resilience

Abstract

The resilience of communities to earthquakes is a function of the performance of infrastructure and, specifically, water supply systems in the aftermath of the disaster and their serviceability during the recovery time. Determination of a framework for measuring the resilience of water systems remains a challenge. This paper proposes a framework for measuring multifaceted resilience of water systems, focusing on the significance of characteristics of different communities to the resilience of water supply systems. The proposed framework consists of eight principle activities: (1) developing a conceptual framework, (2) selecting appropriate indicators, (3) refining the indicators based on data availability, (4) correlation analysis, (5) scaling the indicators, (6) weighting the variables, (7) measuring the indicators, and (8) aggregating the indicators. This framework allows researchers to develop appropriate indicators in each dimension and enables decision makers to easily participate in the process and follow the procedure for resilience composite indicator development. The proposed framework has been applied to a hypothetical case to show how the framework works.