Looking through the lens of Nature: can we think of infrastructure systems as an extension of natural systems?

Following recent extreme events in New Zealand, Haiti, and Japan, and other parts of the world, infrastructure systems have copiously been identified as lifelines of cities and essential to the smooth functioning of modern societies . Therefore, resilience of these systems cannot be defined based on mere infrastructure’s physical attributes. Rather resilience can best be considered as an interactive process that unfolds over time and which is continuously influenced by ongoing change in the context . In other words, maintaining resilience of complex and critical infrastructure systems as a whole including social systems, organisational, technical, and economical systems should become an essential, continuous, and engineered part of their management.