Understanding ownership, agency, and practice in infrastructure resilience

Abstract

The UK’s infrastructure faces growing vulnerability to climate change, yet adaptation measures remain inconsistent and politically deprioritised. Drawing on 30 expert interviews, this paper examines how climate resilience is conceptualised, assessed, governed, and financed, and identifies the key barriers to effective implementation of resilient infrastructure. Findings reveal that barriers are less about knowledge gaps and more about structural misalignments between long-term climate risk and short-term political, financial, and regulatory cycles. Cost–benefit analyses, insurance renewal practices, mortgage markets, and electoral horizons collectively discourage preventive investment and shift risk onto communities. While technological advances, nature-based solutions, and professional leadership provide a foundation for resilience, institutional silos, misaligned incentives, and the absence of shared metrics constrain progress. Using socio-technical systems theory, the study argues that effective resilience requires a holistic framework and its recognition as a shared societal responsibility, coordinated through stronger cross-sector governance mechanisms, potentially including a government-appointed authority. Embedding resilience demands reforms in valuation practices, cross-scale governance, and the integration of systemic risk into financial and regulatory decision making. This work contributes to climate adaptation governance by positioning resilience as a political and economic coordination challenge, not merely a technical design problem.