A SETS approach to understanding interdependent technological (T) infrastructure for resilience in cities

Background/Question/Methods: Human-built infrastructure systems deliver critical and basic services that sustain human activities. There has been a long history of study to understand the impacts of infrastructure on the natural environment, including the resources used to build and maintain these systems, how these systems remove resources and transform them, and how these systems expel waste. Yet at the dawn of the twenty-first century the complexity of infrastructure has grown to the point where the systems themselves are challenging to understand, as well as their relationships with social and ecological systems. The relationships between technological infrastructural systems and social and ecological systems are of critical importance as accelerating and uncertain conditions are becoming normal.

Results/Conclusions: The implications of changing human-built infrastructure on social and ecological systems will be explored in this talk, as part of a broader session focused on the emerging SETS framework. First, the emerging complexity of infrastructure and its environments will be characterized. Next, it will be argued that the dichotomy between infrastructure and the environment is shrinking, as the scale and scope of human activities increases. Following, the changing role of infrastructure will be described, from purely technological in the past century to increasingly cyber-physical and hybrid gray-green. Lastly, the SETS framework will be positioned as a critical lens for understanding the emerging complexity that is becoming infrastructure and its accelerating and uncertain environment.