Understanding Australian port resilience and the development of a port resilience framework

Australian critical infrastructure organisations are increasingly challenged to prepare for unexpected low-probability/high-consequence adverse events, against which their traditional risk identification and assessment processes might prove ineffective. Australian ports are an important component of this national critical infrastructure system (AG 2015; IA 2016) and the government encourages such public/private sector entities to adopt organisational resilience within their business continuity strategies. Port resilience has important ramifications for global supply chain competitiveness, as disruptions affecting the port carry potential to shut down entire supply chain conglomerates (Justice, Cahoon & Brooks 2014). Australian port managers have ample economic and business continuity rationale for increasing their levels of resilience but might experience difficulty in understanding how best to undertake this process. Accordingly, this chapter explores the concept of port resilience and methodologies for instilling resilience within the port’s crises management plans, policies and strategies.

Global interest in infrastructure protection and organisational resilience is encouraged by the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 which states a need for ‘… the building of resilience into policies, plans, programmes and budgets at all levels’ (UNISDR 2015, p. 9). The Sendai Framework provides rationale for protecting critical infrastructure related to supply chains, business continuity of essential services, and the integration of disaster risk management into organisational plans and strategies.