The goal to improve the resilience of social systems – communities and their economies – is increasingly adopted by decision makers. This unique and comprehensive Handbook focuses on the interdependencies of these social systems and the technologies that support them. Special attention is given to the ways in which resilience is conceptualized by different disciplines, how resilience may be assessed, and how resilience strategies are implemented. Case illustrations are presented throughout to aid understanding.

This book provides basics and selected advanced insights on how to generate reliability, safety and resilience within (socio) technical system developments. The focus is on working definitions, fundamental development processes, safety development processes and analytical methods on how to support such schemes. The method families of Hazard Analyses, Failure Modes and Effects Analysis and Fault Tree Analysis are explained in detail. Further main topics include semiformal graphical system modelling, requirements types, hazard log, reliability prediction standards, techniques and measures for reliable hardware and software with respect to systematic and statistical errors, and combination options of methods. The book is based on methods as applied during numerous applied research and development projects and the support and auditing of such projects, including highly safety-critical automated and autonomous systems. Numerous questions and answers challenge students and practitioners.

There has not yet been a comprehensive method that goes behind 'human error' and beyond the failure concept, and various complicated accidents have accentuated the need for it. The Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM) fulfils that need. This book presents a detailed and tested method that can be used to model how complex and dynamic socio-technical systems work, and understand both why things sometimes go wrong but also why they normally succeed.

Presenting critical insights on how economic activity is constrained by the environment’s ability to provide material and energy resources, this timely Research Agenda explores how humanity shapes, and is shaped by, environmental change and sustainability challenges. Chapters highlight how, under these constraints, people may seek to improve their lives and standards of living without undermining the abilities of others to do so now or in the future.

Safety-I is defined as the freedom from unacceptable harm. The purpose of traditional safety management is therefore to find ways to ensure this ‘freedom’. But as socio-technical systems steadily have become larger and less tractable, this has become harder to do. Resilience engineering pointed out from the very beginning that resilient performance - an organisation’s ability to function as required under expected and unexpected conditions alike – required more than the prevention of incidents and accidents. This developed into a new interpretation of safety (Safety-II) and consequently a new form of safety management. Safety-II changes safety management from protective safety and a focus on how things can go wrong, to productive safety and a focus on how things can and do go well. For Safety-II, the aim is not just the elimination of hazards and the prevention of failures and malfunctions but also how best to develop an organisation’s potentials for resilient performance – the way it responds, monitors, learns, and anticipates. That requires models and methods that go beyond the Safety-I toolbox. This book introduces a comprehensive approach for the management of Safety-II, called the Resilience Assessment Grid (RAG). It explains the principles of the RAG and how it can be used to develop the resilience potentials. The RAG provides four sets of diagnostic and formative questions that can be tailored to any organisation. The questions are based on the principles of resilience engineering and backed by practical experience from several domains. Safety-II in Practice is for both the safety professional and academic reader. For the professional, it presents a workable method (RAG) for the management of Safety-II, with a proven track record. For academic and student readers, the book is a concise and practical presentation of resilience engineering.

This handbook aims at modernizing the current state of civil engineering and firefighting, especially in this era where infrastructures are reaching new heights, serving diverse populations, and being challenged by unique threats. Its aim is to set the stage toward realizing contemporary, smart, and resilient infrastructure. The Handbook of Cognitive and Autonomous Systems for Fire Resilient Infrastructures draws convergence between civil engineering and firefighting to the modern realm of interdisciplinary sciences (i.e., artificial intelligence, IoT, robotics, sensing, and human psychology). As such, this work aims to revolutionize the current philosophy of design for one of the most notorious extreme events: fire. Unlike other publications, which are narrowed to one specific research area, this handbook cultivates a paradigm in which critical aspects of structural design, technology, and human behavior are studied and examined through chapters written by leaders in their fields. This handbook can also serve as a textbook for graduate and senior undergraduate students in Civil, Mechanical, and Fire Protection engineering programs as well as for students in Architectural and social science disciplines. Students, engineers, academics, professionals, scientists, firefighters, and government officials involved in national and international societies such as the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE), National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), among others, will benefit from this handbook.

Increasingly, cracks are appearing in the capacity of communities, ecosystems, and landscapes to provide the goods and services that sustain our planet's well-being. The response from most quarters has been for "more of the same" that created the situation in the first place: more control, more intensification, and greater efficiency. "Resilience thinking" offers a different way of understanding the world and a new approach to managing resources. It embraces human and natural systems as complex entities continually adapting through cycles of change, and seeks to understand the qualities of a system that must be maintained or enhanced in order to achieve sustainability. It explains why greater efficiency by itself cannot solve resource problems and offers a constructive alternative that opens up options rather than closing them down. In Resilience Thinking, scientist Brian Walker and science writer David Salt present an accessible introduction to the emerging paradigm of resilience. The book arose out of appeals from colleagues in science and industry for a plainly written account of what resilience is all about and how a resilience approach differs from current practices. Rather than complicated theory, the book offers a conceptual overview along with five case studies of resilience thinking in the real world. It is an engaging and important work for anyone interested in managing risk in a complex world.