The resilience of Thessaloniki: An open discussion

Thessaloniki facing the new condition of the climate crisis – Written by Yiannis Xenidis

Words: Yannis Xenidis

In a previous note on parallaxi, about a year ago (10/03/2023), titled “We must ask for resilience and not just the resilience of cities and infrastructure” presented the conceptual distinction between the established term of “resilience” and the term “resilience” that has been proposed – as early as 2014 – by Hellenic Society of Terminology (ELETO) for the rendering of the term “resilience” in the Greek language.

The motivation of that report was the emergence of the dominant issue after the manifestation of an extreme natural phenomenon which, in the era of the climate crisis, has such intensity that it often makes the failure of infrastructure or a system thereof inevitable. This dominant issue is the design and management of infrastructure systems in terms of increasing their repeatability, i.e. increasing their quality beyond being able to withstand, be able to regroup, adapt, recover, and ultimately define new levels, structures, and processes of functioning.

Achieving this design requires the best possible understanding of the object of study. Contemporary literature exhaustively explores the term and content of reorientation and links it, among others, to all other contemporary terms of urban system design, such as, for example, sustainability and the smart city. However, the interpretive tendency that presents the greatest interest both from a theoretical point of view and in terms of its operational application is the consideration of repeatability as an emergent property of the system. This view defines repeatability not as a static property that the system possesses to some degree, but as the dynamic property of forming different entities, in different conditions, on the basis of pre-existing, but also maintained during the impact, interdependencies and interconnections of information flows. , services and resources between the independent parts of the system that reflect its overall operation and performance. This context highlights the complexity in the search for increasing the resilience of an urban system and justifies the ever greater importance given to the sociological dimension of the issue. Thus infrastructure systems are no longer just ‘technical’, but ‘socio-technical’.

The practical importance of the above for planning lies, first of all, in the correct recognition of the existing state of the urban system, but also of its possibilities of recovery and adaptability to new levels of functionality after the blow has passed. This identification can be achieved mainly by modeling the system, e.g. using intelligent agents where system components are simulated as agents interacting in a networked representation of their physical operating environment.

An early such study on the urban system of Thessaloniki was prepared within the framework of the Master’s Program “Administration and Management of Technical Projects” already in 2016. Using as a reference the evaluation report issued that year by the Office of Urban Resilience and Development Programs of the Municipality In Thessaloniki, the basic descriptions of the factors that influence the planning of the city’s reorientation were drawn. It clearly follows from them that the city of Thessaloniki is exposed to a significant number of risks, perhaps greater, due to its geographical location, than the equivalent faced by all modern metropolitan cities. The city’s history itself has been hit by fires, floods, frosts and earthquakes, while in the era of the climate crisis, the possibility of hurricanes cannot be ruled out. At the same time, the municipal authority of the time prioritized the main roads and hospitals as the most important of Thessaloniki’s critical infrastructures, while the same importance was attached to the protection and preservation of open public spaces. In particular, the evaluation report emphasized the special importance of the ring road and the city’s main road axes, both for facilitating evacuation in the event of an extreme event (e.g. earthquake), and for access to the large hospitals located in its periphery city.

The study was prepared for individual and combined natural disaster scenarios of the earthquake, flood, heat wave and fire of the peri-urban forest of Sheikh Shui and their impact on the critical infrastructure of hospitals, power grid, telecommunication network , the water supply network and the critical road arteries and the ring road of Thessaloniki. The data on the consequences of the above-mentioned damages for the infrastructure network of Thessaloniki were collected during an open workshop organized in the context of the Urban Resilience program of the Municipality of Thessaloniki by experts of the infrastructure management bodies through interviews and their use of qualitative impact assessment scales in in relation to the vulnerability of Thessaloniki’s infrastructure.

The main conclusions of the study of infrastructure resilience scenarios for the shocks under consideration that are worth mentioning in the context of this note are the following two:

1. The infrastructure that was consistently hit hardest by indirect consequences was hospitals compellingly highlighting the need to strengthen the backup means that exist for it.
2. The manifestation of the consequences of the blow always started from the moment of its appearance, without a time lag highlighting the lack of sufficient time to take dynamic measures at the catastrophic stage. What varied from infrastructure to infrastructure was the timing of the end of the impact action and the start of their return to service.

This study presents important substantive limitations both in terms of the modeling assumptions and in terms of the data used for the simulations. For example, he did not examine the city of Thessaloniki as a socio-technical urban system, nor did he assess its repeatability as a whole as an emergent property, but individually at the level of infrastructure networks. Also, it was not able to utilize valuation indicators of the operation of each city’s infrastructure network, as, at least, during the time period of the study similar data were not available to the respective infrastructure operators themselves. Thus, her conclusions about Thessaloniki’s resilience should be considered indicative rather than representative. However, they can be used as a basis for further investigation and reflection.

Having experienced the intervening years to date and now seeing the stakes and pressing needs much more clearly we can pick up the thread from the beginning and reflect on our choices in the planning and implementation of the projects for the city of Thessaloniki. The application of the knowledge acquired since then, the utilization of the many research findings that have emerged in the meantime, both for Thessaloniki and for similar urban systems internationally, the nature-based solutions following the modern trend, and the prioritization of priorities with benefit for the citizens in the present and in the future can surely increase the resilience of Thessaloniki in the new condition of the climate crisis.

Yiannis Xenidis is a Professor of Risk Management in the Life Cycle of Civil Engineering Projects, in the Department of Civil Engineering, A.U.Th.

Referrals

Tzioutziou A. and Xenidis Y. (2021). “A Study on the Integration of Resilience and Smart City Concepts in Urban Systems”, InfrastructuresVol.6, No.2, https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6020024.

General Scientific Council (2015). Terminology task report for the year 2014, ELETO.

Office of Urban Resilience and Development Programs of the Municipality of Thessaloniki (2016). Urban Assessment Report, Thessaloniki: Municipality of Thessaloniki.

Nassou, P. (2016). Analysis of infrastructure systems using dynamic network analysis to address natural and man-made disasters, Master ThesisPMS – Administration and Management of Technical Projects, Department of Civil Engineering, A.U.Th.

Xenidis, I. (2023). “We must ask for resilience and not just the resilience of cities and infrastructure”, parallaxi Online Magazine, March 10, 2023, Available: https://parallaximag.gr/parallax-view/prepei-na-zitame-tin-epanataktikotita-kai-ochi-mono-tin-anthektikotita-poleon-kai-ypodomon