For several decades, optical networks, due to their high capacity and long-distance transmission range, have been used as the major communication technology to serve network traffic, especially in the core and metro segments of communication networks. Unfortunately, our society has often experienced how the correct functioning of these critical infrastructures can be substantially hindered by massive failures triggered by natural disasters, weather-related disruptions and malicious human activities.

In this position paper, we discuss the impact on optical networks of all major classes of disaster events mentioned above, and we overview recent relevant techniques that have been proposed to increase the disaster resilience of optical networks against the various classes of disaster events. We start by presenting some proactive methods to be applied before the occurrence of a disaster. Then we move our focus also on other preparedness methods that can be executed in the (typically short) time frame between the occurrence of an early alert of an incoming disaster and the time a disaster actually hits the network. Finally, we discuss reactive procedures that allow performing post-disaster recovery operations effectively. The analysis of disaster resilience mechanisms provided in this paper covers both wired and optical wireless communication infrastructures and also contains explicit remarks covering the role of emerging technologies (e.g., fixed-mobile convergence in the 5G era and beyond) in disaster resilience.

几十年来，光网络由于其高容量和远距离传输距离，一直作为主要的通信技术服务于网络流量，尤其是在通信网络的核心和城域网段。不幸的是，我们的社会经常经历自然灾害、天气相关中断和恶意人类活动引发的大规模故障如何严重阻碍这些关键基础设施的正常运行。

在本立场文件中，我们讨论了上述所有主要类别的灾难事件对光网络的影响，并概述了最近提出的相关技术，这些技术旨在提高光网络对各类灾难事件的灾难恢复能力。我们首先介绍一些可在灾难发生之前应用的主动方法。然后，我们还将重点转移到其他准备方法上，这些方法可以在传入灾难的早期警报发生和灾难实际袭击网络之间的（通常很短）时间范围内执行。最后，我们讨论了允许有效执行灾后恢复操作的反应式程序。