The services provided by infrastructure, such as water and wastewater, power and energy, transport, telecommunications, health, and education that are essential for social and economic development. (Definition adopted in the CDRI Biennal Report)

The Global Infrastructure Risk Model and Index (GIRI) is the first publicly available, fully probabilistic risk model to estimate risk for infrastructure assets with respect to most major geological and climate-related hazards. 

The purpose of GIRI is to improve understanding and make visible the global landscape of infrastructure risk and resilience.   

GIRI can assist in the identification of the contingent liabilities internalised in each infrastructure sector and the implications for social and economic development. It can thus provide the basis for developing national resilience policies, strategies and plans, as well as resilience standards.   

Engineered physical structures that underpin energy, transport, communications (including wireless and digital), built form, water and sanitation, and solid-waste management systems and that protect human lives and livelihood.

CDRI has defined infrastructure as “Individual assets, networks and systems that provide specific services to support the functioning of a community or society” (CDRI, 2023).

This is similar to the definition of infrastructure adopted by the United Nations, as “the physical structures, facilities, networks and other assets which provide services that are essential to the social and economic functioning of a community or society” (UNDRR, 2017). 

Infrastructure systems can also be grouped into two broad categories based on their scale, purpose, and topology. Strategic economic infrastructure or critical infrastructure refers to infrastructure that supports strategic sectors, regional and global trade, and economic integration, and includes power stations, ports and airports, large dams, refineries, logistic hubs and major highways, railways, and high-tension transmission lines. Local or basic infrastructure systems refer to infrastructure that provides essential services to individuals, households, communities, and businesses3 and includes water, drainage, sanitation networks, local road, river, and rail networks, health and education facilities, post-harvest processing and storage facilities etc. In the topology of infrastructure, local infrastructure systems nest within national, regional, and global networks of strategic economic infrastructure.

The capacity to plan, finance, design, implement, manage, operate, and maintain infrastructure systems (Hertie School of Governance, 2016: The Governance Report).  

The series of stages during the lifetime of an infrastructure asset, starting from planning, prioritization and funding to the design, procurement, construction, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning.

Maintenance is a cycle of activities designed and undertaken to preserve the optimal functioning of infrastructure, including in adverse conditions. It is a necessary precondition for the preservation of its operational capability, and to guarantee service continuity.

Arrangements of infrastructure components and linkages that provide a service or services.

Facilities at the local level, including water, drainage and sanitation networks, road, river and rail networks, bridges, health, and education facilities, as well as other local facilities services to individuals, households, communities, and businesses in their current locations.

Actions to protect, conserve, restore, sustainably use and manage natural or modified terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems, which address social, economic and environmental challenges effectively and adaptively, while simultaneously providing human well-being, ecosystem services, and resilience and biodiversity benefits (UNEP, 2022c).  NbIS is used in this report to refer to the application of nature-based solutions to address infrastructure requirements, in other words directly connecting the natural environment with the built environment.