#60 - Maryam Imani: Embracing failure to build resilience - critical infrastructure, nature and the human spirit

About this episode

Dr. Maryam Imani discusses the interdependencies of urban critical infrastructure and the importance of communication during crises.

Why do some cities grind to a halt during storms while others recover quickly? The answer often lies in what happens when water, energy and transport fail at the same time, and whether the people managing them are actually talking to each other. In Episode 60, Dr Maryam Imani, Associate Professor of Water Systems Engineering at Anglia Ruskin University, takes us into the hidden interdependencies of urban critical infrastructure. Drawing on her RV-DSS (Resilience and Vulnerability-informed Dec...

People in this episode

Host: Peter Marcus Bach

Guest: Maryam Imani

Topics covered

• resilience
• critical infrastructure
• urban planning
• water systems
• energy management
• transportation
• interdependencies

Keywords

• resilience
• critical infrastructure
• water systems
• energy
• transport
• urban planning
• failure
• recovery

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Anglia Ruskin University

Places: cities, urban

More episodes of The Grand Challengers Podcast

• #64 - Alex Josephson: When Architecture Misbehaves, from Spreadsheets in the Sky to Digital Tombs · June 8, 2026 · 2h 0m
• #63 - Jean-Christian Rindoni: Profit is the Breath, Purpose is the Reason in Conscious Business and Circularity · May 18, 2026 · 1h 31m
• #62 - Anacleto Rizzo: Throwing your heart beyond the fence with treatment wetlands and NBS · May 4, 2026 · 1h 23m
• #61 - Richard C. Tyson: Waste is "resources in the wrong place" - from small islands to circular economy and certifications · April 20, 2026 · 1h 6m
• #59 - Galina Yordanova: Human Consciousness is the most valuable business asset in the Age of AI · March 23, 2026 · 1h 33m
• #58 - Juan Pablo Carbajal: Tadpoles, tolerance and why AI alignment is really a human problem · March 2, 2026 · 1h 41m