Survivability

Survivability is the ability to remain alive or continue to exist. The term has more specific meaning in certain contexts. Survivability is the ability to remain alive or continue to exist. The term has more specific meaning in certain contexts. Following disruptive forces such as flood, fire, disease, war, or climate change some species of flora, fauna, and local life forms are likely to survive more successfully than others because of consequent changes to their surrounding biophysical conditions. In engineering, survivability is the quantified ability of a system, subsystem, equipment, process, or procedure to continue to function during and after a natural or man-made disturbance; for example a nuclear electromagnetic pulse from the detonation of a nuclear weapon. For a given application, survivability must be qualified by specifying the range of conditions over which the entity will survive, the minimum acceptable level or post-disturbance functionality, and the maximum acceptable downtime. In the military environment, survivability is defined as the ability to remain mission capable after a single engagement. Engineers working in survivability are often responsible for improving four main system elements: