Resilience sits in an intricate interplay among individuals, communities, institutions and infrastructures. Therefore, it is not appropriate considering resilience as a mono-disciplinary topic, but rather as a “Concept” which is characterized by 4 main resilience capabilities – Plan/Prepare, Absorb, Recover and Adapt – and 4 main socio-technical system dimensions – physical, information, cognitive and social – to be defined and described for each of the 4 capabilities. 

In this sense Resilience can be seen as a proactive approach to enhance the ability of infrastructures to prevent damage before disturbance events, mitigate losses during the events and improve the recovery capability after the events, beyond the concept of pure prevention and hardening (Woods). 

In addition to Resilience, when dealing with Emergency Phases, one cannot neglect to take into account the Disaster Risk Management Cycle (DRMC) consisting of Preparation, Response, Recovery and Mitigation or in a more detailed way consisting of Pre-disaster, Response and Post-Disaster. How the concept of Resilience is linked with the DRMC phases is a further aspect to be considered and worth of clarification. Indeed, conceptually, risk analysis quantifies the probability that the system will reach the lowest point of the critical functionality profile. Classical risk management often also only quantifies the initial loss. Risk management helps the system prepare and plan for adverse events, whereas resilience management goes further by integrating the temporal capacity of a system to absorb and recover from adverse events, and adapt accordingly. Thus, resilience, on the basis of the definitions aforementioned, is not a substitute for principled system design or risk management but is rather a complementary attribute that uses strategies of adaptation and mitigation to improve traditional risk management. Indeed, given a certain event, the customization of Resilience within the Disaster Risk Management Cycle results in an infinite or panarchy loop that SecureGas sets as the basis of a proper conceptual approach to the Resilience and Security of the European Gas CI. 

In practical terms this means that existing and new Gas infrastructure will have to resist to hazards and absorb their impacts more efficiently and more effectively; accommodate and recover the effects of a hazard more efficiently, timely and safely; and be designed/restored to coordinate more efficiently across the various phases of a disaster risk management cycle. 

However, this is not enough to make sure that Resilience is really built operationally and it is considered as a driving principle for an owner/operator of Critical Infrastructure. Indeed this has to deal with the Governance of an infrastructure and with the standardized way an infrastructure is governed, i.e. planned, constructed, operated and maintained. The Governance of an Infrastructure is a standardized discipline regulated by the ISO 55000:2014. The asset life begins with the conception and the initial stages of the asset design and ends with the decommission of the asset itself, moving across construction, operation and maintenance (Infrastructure Governance cycle proposed by OECD). Integrating resilience concepts and capabilities into Asset Management, allows the Operator / Manager of an Infrastructure to build a more pragmatic approach towards an optimal Governance of an Asset, improving the integration across different disciplines and cross-functional coordination.