integrating systems thinking into resilient infrastructure design: a case study on the shahid rajaee port explosion

Robust critical infrastructure resilience is imperative for sustaining economic stability, national security, and societal well-being amid escalating multi-hazard threats. this study analyzes the process of designing resilient critical infrastructure through a comprehensive hybrid methodology, employing the logical framework of observation-assertion-argument. meaningful integration of systemic thinking with core resilience indicators is achieved via synthesis of prior research and the developed hybrid approach. empirical observation of the 2025 shahid rajaee port explosion (70 fatalities, $198m losses) exposed systemic vulnerabilities within iran’s international north-south transport corridor (instc), demonstrating that conventional redundancy measures failed to prevent service disruption during cascading failures. shahid beheshti port’s role as rajaee’s backup—sustaining instc operations—confirms that critical infrastructure resilience requires proportional capacity distribution across port networks and hazard-diversified risk management. we assert that true resilience necessitates intelligent redundancy harmonizing three pillars: inherent capacity (applying ecological adaptability principles to infrastructure), correlation-centric component design (mapping dynamic interdependencies), and stakeholder-driven self-organization. this is evidenced by the rajaee incident, where centralized control exacerbated fire propagation, and further validated by seismic exposure analysis: despite chabahar’s limited throughput, strategic enhancement of this sustainably developed port can mitigate future operational collapse at rajaee. we argue that operationalizing resilience requires: (1) converting strategic policies into technical metrics (e.g., chaos-theoretic container handling capacity dispersion and multi-hazard contingency planning), (2) embedding modular metabolic flexibility to absorb localized shocks, and (3) institutionalizing learning loops through distributed adaptive control nuclei to complete critical infrastructure self-organization cycles. this study confirms that only integrated correlation-aware redundancy—not isolated backups—aligns socio-economic-environmental performance with sustainability across hazard cycles.