Engineering

Philosophy

Causation

Natural disaster

Water transport

Statistics

Psychological resilience

Astrophysics

Computer science

Risk analysis (engineering)

Business

Environmental planning

Environmental engineering

Thermodynamics

Physics

Accident (philosophy)

Psychology

Mathematics

Geography

Political science

Environmental resource management

Psychotherapist

Epistemology

Environmental science

Artificial intelligence

Water flow

Resilience (materials science)

Meteorology

Flexibility (engineering)

Perspective (graphical)

Star (game theory)

International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction

The cruiser Eastern Star accident is a catastrophic accident in water transportation industry. The accident has originated from both natural and human-induced causes. This type of complex causation constitutes a pervasive threat to a broader range of water transport activities. The present paper offers an in-depth reflection on the Eastern Star accident through analysis by conventional methods. The first objective is to identify issues in the water transport system. A comparative study is performed to find how the different methods can help to improve safety in unexpected or unknown disruptions of the water transport system, steering towards the concept of resilience as more pertinent from the perspective of safety engineering. Difficulties and challenges in the current paradigms of risk and resilience are delineated at both the operational and theoretical levels, with respect to the specificities of water transport. To articulate the relationship between resilience and risk assessment, this paper proposes a resilience-modulated risk model for integration in the practice of water transport.

A resilience perspective on water transport systems: The case of Eastern Star