Page - 30 - in options, Volume summer 2017

yssp 30 people at iiasa www.iiasa.ac.atoptions ◼ summer 2017 Resilience is a slippery term. Resilience might refer to a person or community’s ability to adapt and rebuild after a disaster, but the term is also used more technically to describe the properties of a system to recover from collapse or catastrophe. These multiple definitions of resilience mean that there are also many approaches to study it. In a recent study, University of Tokyo researcher Ali Kharrazi and IIASA researcher Brian Fath bring some clarity to the concept of resilience and the empirical—or evidence- based—approaches used to study it in social environmental systems. “Resilience is the ability of a system to survive and adapt in the wake of a disturbance.” says Kharrazi, an alumnus of the 2012 Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP). However, he says, “there are few empirical approaches to the concept of resilience. This makes measuring, quantifying, communicating, and applying the concept to sustainability challenges difficult.” The study found that in fact, none of the current methods can handle all aspects of the concept of resilience. What’s needed, Kharrazi says, is to apply different empirical approaches towards real-world sustainability challenges, using real data from cities and countries. Kharrazi credits the YSSP with strengthening his passion, and giving him the research skills to make a positive impact on humanity and sustainable development. “When I first started my PhD I became interested in the concept of resilience, its relationship to common sustainability challenges, and our inability to measure and quantify this importance concept. Since my PhD I have continued to do research in this area and apply it to various domains, including energy, water, and trade.” KL When Sweden launched their first wireless electric bus system last year, Maria Xylia had just the tool that city planners needed. Xylia, a PhD student at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, spent the summer of 2016 at IIASA working on a new model to optimize the bus charging system. Xylia’s model shows the optimal locations for charging stations, potentially cutting CO2 emissions in half and lowering energy consumption by 34%. The model is used for optimizing energy or cost savings. The new bus charging system relies on electric buses that can be charged wirelessly at bus stops, instead of having to be plugged in. While the buses can also run on a backup biodiesel engine, placing the charging stations in the right spots can keep the buses charged, and reduces local emissions and noise. The model Xylia developed for Stockholm was based on the IIASA BeWhere model, a tool that can be used for energy system optimization at the local, regional, and national scale. The researchers say that the model could be used for any city hoping to build such a system. “As long as you have a detailed map of the bus network and a reliable bus schedule, then you can do this for any city,” Xylia says. “London, for example, is much bigger than Stockholm, but if they have this data we can generate optimized energy and cost scenarios for that system.” KL Nailing down resilience and sustainability Ali Kharrazi, an alumnus of the 2012 YSSP, is taking a critical look at the concepts of resilience and sustainability Further info Kharrazi A, Fath B, & Katzmair H (2016). Advancing Empirical Approaches to the Concept of Resilience: A Critical Examination of Panarchy, Ecological Information, and Statistical Evidence. Sustainability 8 (9): e935. [pure.iiasa.ac.at/13791] blog.iiasa.ac.at/Kharrazi-17 Driving the sustainability bus A 2016 YSSP project was put to use in Sweden’s first wireless bus-charging system Ali Kharrazi Maria Xylia Further info Xylia M, Leduc S, Patrizio P, Kraxner F, & Silveira S (2017). Locating charging infrastructure for electric buses in Stockholm. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies 78: 183-200. [pure.iiasa.ac.at/14474] www.iiasa.ac.at/news/bus-17