Resilience Improvement Research Articles

Climate change impacts outweigh conservation efforts in coral reefs that are highly exposed to thermal stresses in Zanzibar, Tanzania

With a greater range of management practices and so many threats to coral reefs, assessing coral reef resilience using social-ecological approaches is an important way towards understanding the climatic and non-climatic impacts, and proper conservation efforts in coral reefs. In this study, six reefs (Changuu, Chapwani, Chumbe, Kizimkazi, Mnemba East and Mnemba West) were selected as case study sites to explore resilience potential of coral reefs in Zanzibar in relation to contrasting conservation strategies. Data were collected through household surveys, key informant interviews and biological survey (line-intercept transect and direct observations). Results showed that, Chumbe reefs was perceived to be highly protected followed by Kizimkazi reefs, while Changuu and Chapwani were considered to be less protected. Fishing pressure, climate change, inadequate management and pollution were regarded as the most critical drivers of coral reefs degradation. Coral bleaching was identified to be a main cause of coral reef damage by communities in Chumbe and Mnemba East, whereas inadequate management, pollution and uncontrolled tourisms were identified as the major driver by those in Changuu and Chapwani. Overall, reefs from Kizimkazi was found to have the highest resilience potential as it is under community-based conservation compared to other reefs. We conclude that coral reef resilience is context-specific and influenced by multiple factors, and although conservation efforts have a positive impact on coral reef health, climate change effects outweigh conservation efforts in reefs that are highly exposed to thermal stresses, such as the Chumbe and Mnemba East reefs. We recommend further promotion of viable alternative livelihood activities to reef reliant communities and collaborative management for the improvement of corals' resilience and conservation in the study area.

Construction and application of sponge city resilience evaluation system: a case study in Xi’an, China

Urban vulnerability is evident when highly complex flood risks overlap with diverse cities, and it is important to enhance the resilience of cities to flood shocks. In this study, a sponge city resilience assessment system is established considering engineering, environmental and social indicators, and the grey relational analysis method (GRA) is used to quantify sponge city resilience. At the same time, a multi-objective optimization model is established based on the three dimensions of water ecological environment, drainage safety, and waterlogging safety. The optimal configuration of grey-green infrastructure is weighed by combining the ideal point method, aiming to ensure that cities effectively reduce flood risk through the optimal configuration scheme. Taking the Xiaozhai area in Xi'an as the study area, the evaluation results show that the grey relational degree (GRD) of the resilience indexes of the original scheme is between 0.390 and 0.661 under the seven different return periods, while the optimization scheme ranges from 0.648 to 0.765, with the best sponge city resilience at a return period of 2a. Compared with the original scheme, the optimized sponge city resilience level increases from level II to nearly level I in the low return period and from level IV to level II in the high return period, indicating that city's ability to cope with waterlogging and pollution is enhanced significantly. Besides, the main factor affecting the sponge city resilience is the runoff control rate, followed by pollutant load reduction rate, which can provide a methodological framework for the assessment and improvement of sponge city resilience.

Transcription factor bHLH121 regulates root cortical aerenchyma formation in maize

Root anatomical phenotypes present a promising yet underexploited avenue to deliver major improvements in yield and climate resilience of crops by improving water and nutrient uptake. For instance, the formation of root cortical aerenchyma (RCA) significantly increases soil exploration and resource capture by reducing the metabolic costs of root tissue. A key bottleneck in studying such phenotypes has been the lack of robust high-throughput anatomical phenotyping platforms. We exploited a phenotyping approach based on laser ablation tomography, termed Anatomics, to quantify variation in RCA formation of 436 diverse maize lines in the field. Results revealed a significant and heritable variation for RCA formation. Genome-wide association studies identified a single-nucleotide polymorphism mapping to a root cortex-expressed gene-encoding transcription factor bHLH121. Functional studies identified that the bHLH121 Mu transposon mutant line and CRISPR/Cas9 loss-of-function mutant line showed reduced RCA formation, whereas an overexpression line exhibited significantly greater RCA formation when compared to the wild-type line. Characterization of these lines under suboptimal water and nitrogen availability in multiple soil environments revealed that bHLH121 is required for RCA formation developmentally as well as under studied abiotic stress. Overall functional validation of the bHLH121 gene's importance in RCA formation provides a functional marker to select varieties with improved soil exploration and thus yield under suboptimal conditions.

Implementation and evaluation of an end-of-life care education program for oncology nurses working in medical-surgical wards: A quasi-experimental study

BackgroundThe issue of a good death for cancer patients is becoming more prevalent. Hence, nurses' end-of-life work performance and stress levels in medical-surgical wards can significantly impact the quality of life of cancer patients and their caregivers. This study aimed to develop an end-of-life care education program for nurses taking care of cancer patients in medical-surgical ward and verify the program's preliminary effect. MethodQuasi-experimental research using a one-group pretest-posttest design was carried out for this study. The end-of-life care manual for nurses in general wards were developed through expert validation. Initial in-person and follow-on online self-education sessions were conducted based on the end-of-life care manual. A total of 70 nurses participated in the end-of-life care education program. End-of-life care stress and end-of-life care performance were measured as preliminary program effects. An online survey was conducted before the initial in-person education and after the follow-up online education. ResultsThe end-of-life care education program effectively improved general ward nurses' end-of-life care performance. This performance was improved in the physical and psychological domains. However, this program did not improve the nurses’ performance in end-of-life care in the spiritual domain. Furthermore, it did not effectively reduce the stress on end-of-life care, indicating that improvements should be made. ConclusionsThe improvement of effective end-of-life care education programs for nurses caring for cancer patients in general wards is required. Most importantly, efforts at the hospital organization level are necessary to reduce the stress of end-of-life care by improving the working environment. Additionally, it is necessary to conduct preemptive tailored intervention programs for nurses, such as a resilience improvement program.

Fostering resilience by means of an online academic course: Exploring the mediating effects of self-esteem, body esteem and mental status

Universities are witnessing growing rates of emotional and mental challenges among students. Demand for emotional assistance—involving high-impact, cost-effective interventions to strengthen students’ resilience— is outstripping available resources. Accordingly, a new 13-module online course, titled “Favoring Resilience” was designed and taught to undergraduate students. The objectives of this study were to assess this course's feasibility and effectiveness, through a quasi-naturalistic control trial. A sample of 124 students who took this elective course during 2019–2020 was compared with a matching sample of 150 students who did not attend the course. Students were assessed four times: immediately before, immediately after, and three, and six months after the course completion, using the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD_RISK), Rosenberg Scale of Self-Esteem (RSE), Body Esteem Scale (BES), a standardized measure of emotional status (DASS-21), and the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire—4r (SATAQ-4r). The course was found to be both feasible and effective. Statistically significant differences were found between the respective improvements of the Intervention and the Comparison groups in all variables—with the Intervention group showing greater improvement, albeit with a small effect size. Improvement in resilience was mediated by self-esteem and emotional status, but not by body esteem. We conclude that in developing prevention programs for emerging adults, the focus should be both on increasing resilience directly, and on self-esteem and mental status as avenues for enhanced resilience.Clinical trial registration number: NCT04129892

Resiliency improvement in power distribution infrastructure employing distributed generation and switches-a review summary

Resiliency improvement in power distribution infrastructure employing distributed generation and switches-a review summary

Prospects of Xenon Application in Functional Recovery and Rehabilitation of Patients Working in Extreme Occupational Environments

Relevance. Professionals working in extreme environments (army officers, police officers, pilots, divers, firefighters, rescue workers, etc.) are susceptible to overstraining their functional reserves, causing occupational overexposure or even death. It is therefore pivotal to optimize the functional condition of individuals working in extreme occupational environment.The objective is to analyse the prospects for xenon medical application, including to promote functional optimization and occupational resilience in professionals working in extreme occupational environment.Methods. The authors studied the research papers published in the Russian Science Citation Index [https://elibrary.ru/] and PubMed [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov] over the last decade.Results and Discussion. Current research analysis has revealed numerous investigations regarding xenon application in addiction medicine, treatment of post-traumatic stress disorders, and improvement of physiological reserve and occupational resilience, as well as in anesthesiology. Regrettably, our review of Russian and international publications has failed to answer the pivotal issue regarding pharmacological mechanisms behind xenon action. A few research papers hypothesized without evidence that ionotropic glutamate receptors (NMDA-receptors) might be involved in antinociceptive effects.Conclusion. Xenon is a promise and can be appropriately applied in the treatment and rehabilitation of individuals working in extreme occupational environments.

Can digitalization improve enterprise sustainability?–Evidence from the resilience perspective of Chinese firms

The implementation of digitalization has gradually become an important strategy for many enterprises to improve sustainability. The text mining and principal component analysis methods were used to measure enterprise digitalization and the level of enterprise resilience from 2011 to 2019, respectively. This study then explored the impact of digitalization on enterprise resilience. This research comes to three conclusions. (1) Digitalization can improve enterprise resilience significantly, but beyond the threshold, it inhibits enterprise resilience. In other words, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between digitalization and enterprise resilience, and the steepness of this inverted U-shape shows a marginal increasing trend. (2) Notably, Resource allocation efficiency and information accessibility play a mediating effect in the impact of digitization on enterprise resilience. Further analysis found that the improvement of enterprise resilience is not only conducive to the growth of total factor productivity but also conducive to the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry. (3) The influence of digitization on enterprise resilience in areas with a high level of marketization, labor-and technology-intensive industries, and eastern and coastal areas is more obvious. The impact of digitization on the sustainable development of small and medium-sized enterprises, and private and foreign-funded enterprises is more significant. Finally, corresponding policy suggestions are proposed.

Intervention to promote mental health and psychosocial support to promote social cohesion in the context of ongoing crisis and post conflict

IntroductionArmed conflicts, collective situations of adversity, and gross social injustices cause widespread mental suffering in affected populations. In these crises, conflicts break down and traditional community support mechanisms are weakened or destroyed. The loss of trust in others and the lack of hope for change undermine social cohesion at the deepest levels of communities. Therefore, it is important not to overlook the psychosocial impacts of social injustice and violence on the individual and society undermines other efforts to build peaceful societies. Nevertheless, the use of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) approaches to support social cohesion is still very uncommon.ObjectivesThe objective of the proposed intervention in the Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of Congo was to complement the economic recovery activities of the most vulnerable populations with a psychological support approach. This was to ensure more sustainable results in the appropriation of problem management strategies through the strengthening of individual well-being and group support mechanisms.MethodsThe psychosocial intervention is organized around a community psycho-education to sensitize the populations to mental health issues and to promote the awareness of their possible suffering in order to access a psychological care system. The protocol included five weekly group sessions designed to strengthen participants’ individual and collective psychological resources. Several indicators were measured to assess the impact on social cohesion (psychological well-being, psychological resilience, prosocial behavior, etc.)ResultsIn eight months of intervention between July 2021 and February 2022, 1024 people were able to participate in the psychological support program. 90% of them showed improvement in psychological well-being, daily functioning and resilience. In addition to these very optimistic results on individual aspects, 65% of the participants increased the level of prosocial behaviour.ConclusionsThe psychosocial intervention proposed in an area of permanent conflict and adversity was mainly aimed at improving the well-being of people showing signs of distress to make them better able to complete their economic activity project. The results showed that taking into account the psychosocial dimension, not only reduced distress and allowed people to better project themselves in the future, but also promoted prosocial behavior. All these elements contribute strongly to social cohesion.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

Resilience-Oriented Co-Deployment of Remote- Controlled Switches and Soft Open Points in Distribution Networks

Soft open points (SOPs) can perform load transferring and voltage support, helping to expand the range of service restoration in distribution networks (DNs) under fault scenarios. In addition, in the field of DN restoration, SOPs are usually controlled in coordination with switch actions (e.g., the network reconfiguration). However, in the planning level, the coordinated deployment of SOPs and remote-controlled switches (RCSs) has never been studied in the literature. To this end, for the first time, this paper proposes a co-deployment framework for SOPs and RCSs incorporating active management of flexible resources for resilience improvement in DNs, in which the coupled multiple recovery stages are also modeled and included. The objective is to minimize the investment cost of SOPs and RCSs, along with the cost caused by de-energized loads, with the consideration of exhaustive DN operation constraints over proactive islanding, degradation, isolation and restoration stages. Furthermore, resilience-cost tradeoff is analyzed to help DN managers determine equipment investment plans. The formulated model is further transformed into a mixed-integer second-order cone programming model that can be thus efficiently solved. Simulation results on modified IEEE 34-node and IEEE 123-node test systems verify the effectiveness of the proposed model.

Transcriptional reprogramming during recovery from drought stress in Eucalyptus grandis.

The importance of drought as a constraint to agriculture and forestry is increasing with climate change. Genetic improvement of plants' resilience is one of the mitigation strategies to curb this threat. Although recovery from drought stress is important to long-term drought adaptation and has been considered as an indicator of dehydration tolerance in annual crops, this has not been well explored in forest trees. Thus, we aimed to investigate the physiological and transcriptional changes during drought stress and rewatering in Eucalyptus grandis W. Hill ex Maiden. We set up a greenhouse experiment where we imposed drought stress on 2-year-old seedlings and rewatered the recovery group after 17days of drought. Our measurement of leaf stomatal conductance (gs) showed that, while gs was reduced by drought stress, it fully recovered after 5days of rewatering. The RNA-seq analysis from stem samples revealed that genes related to known stress responses such as phytohormone and reactive oxygen species signaling were upregulated, while genes involved in metabolism and growth were downregulated due to drought stress. We observed reprogramming of signal transduction pathways and metabolic processes at 1day of rewatering, indicating a quick response to rewatering. Our results suggest that recovery from drought stress may entail alterations in the jasmonic acid, salicylic acid, ethylene and brassinosteroid signaling pathways. Using co-expression network analysis, we identified hub genes, including the putative orthologs of ABI1, ABF2, ABF3, HAI2, BAM1, GolS2 and SIP1 during drought and CAT2, G6PD1, ADG1 and FD-1 during recovery. Taken together, by highlighting the molecular processes and identifying key genes, this study gives an overview of the mechanisms underlying the response of E. grandis to drought stress and recovery that trees may face repeatedly throughout their long life cycle. This provides a useful reference to the identification and further investigation of signaling pathways and target genes for future tree improvement.

Improving the climate resilience of European cities via socially acceptable nature-based solutions

Introducing nature based solutions (NBS) into urban areas is a challenging task for climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, the impact and effectiveness of NBS contingent upon the social acceptability of implemented measures. This study uses a dynamic and adaptive social acceptance framework that shows how data-driven science can inform the integration of NBS into cities while also ensuring that the public embraces these solutions. We apply the framework to four different cases: METU Forest in Ankara, Tisza River Bank in Szeged, Forest Garden in Alcalá de Henares, and Quarries in Milan. The results indicate that the key factor affecting social acceptance are procedural and distributive fairness, perceived risks, costs and benefits, knowledge, experience, and personal norms. Perceived benefit is the single common driver that directly affects social acceptance across the four case studies. Understanding the risk and benefits of an NBS and developing personal norms related to the environment will contribute to the improvement of resilience.

Prioritisation of bridge for improving its resilience using multi-criteria decision-making techniques

PurposeThe work on bridge resilience assessment includes quantitative and qualitative approaches to compare the multiple bridges based on their resilience. But still, the bridge resilience obtained by these assessment approaches is inefficient when prioritising multiple bridges to improve their resilience. Therefore, this study aims to develop a methodology for prioritising the bridges to improve their resilience.Design/methodology/approachThe research methodology follows three sequential phases. In the first phase, criteria importance through intercriteria correlation (CRITIC) technique is used to compute the criteria weights. The criteria considered are age, area, design high flood level, finish road level FRL and resilience index of bridges. While 12 river-crossing bridges maintained by one bridge owner are considered as alternatives. Then, in the second phase, the prioritisation of each bridge is evaluated using five techniques, including technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution, VIKOR (in Serbian, Visekriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje), additive ratio assessment, complex proportional assessment and multi-objective optimisation method by ratio analysis. Finally, in the third phase, the results of all five techniques are integrated using CRITIC and the weighted sum method.FindingsThe result of the study enables bridge owners to deal with the particular bridge that requires resilience improvement. The study concluded that it is not enough to consider only the bridge resilience index to improve its resilience. The prioritisation exercise should consider various other criteria that are not preferred during the bridge resilience assessment process.Originality/valueThe proposed methodology is a novel framework based on the existing multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques for contributing knowledge in the domain of bridge resilience management. It can efficiently overcome the pitfall of decision-making when two bridges have the same resilience index score.

3-layer modelling method to improve the cyber resilience in Industrial Control Systems

Cyberattacks against Industrial Control Systems (ICS), which play a crucial role in many industrial domains, could bring environmental and safety damages as well as huge economic loss. To decrease such cybersecurity risks, it is needed to improve the cyber resilience, that is the capability to respond to and recover from the threat in case cyberattacks occur. To this end, we propose the 3-layer modelling method that reproduces ICS by the actor, asset, and process models. The modelling approach based on Petri-Nets is used to express the state of all models in time series and quantify the availability of ICS influenced by cyberattacks, considering the behavior of personnel involving both cybersecurity and industrial operations. To demonstrate the effectiveness, resilience curves, which draw the availability as a function of time, are finally calculated for multiple cases of cyberattacks, assuming a hypothetical manufacturing factory. As a result, the production rate, which represents the availability of the manufacturing industry, is calculated in time series. The resilience curve can be used to determine what and when to do to minimize the impact of cyberattacks, which leads to the improvement of the cyber resilience.

Microbiome in soils of Mendoza: microbial resources for the development of agroecological management in viticulture

Rhizosphere microorganisms are considered an extension of plants, representing critical actors involved in the promotion of plant nutrient intake from the surrounding environment. Consequently, a great focus is being made on soil microorganisms since they are considered a promising source for crop resilience improvements under a global climate change scenario. To explore bacterial and fungal communities from arid soils in vineyards and their surroundings from two regions with very different climate and tillage histories, an amplicon sequencing analysis was performed. Specifically, Santa Rosa (SR) is in a region commonly known as the first zone, characterised by low altitude (607 m.a.s.l., Winkler V), while Gualtallary (G) is in the Uco Valley Zone, a region with high altitude (1245 m.a.s.l., Winkler III); both in the productive wine region of Mendoza. SR is characterised by its long cultivation history, while G is a recently cultivated region. Topsoil samples were collected and used for bacterial and fungal community profile characterisation. Ascomycota was the predominant phylum (38–97 %) in mycobiome composition, whereas Proteobacteria was the most abundant bacterial phylum (26–34 %) in both regions. Moreover, the main factor explaining microbiome differences between regions was the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio. Anaerolineae and Gammaproteobacteria were a distinctive bacterial class in SR-cultivated soils. Azospirillales were highly abundant in SR uncultivated soils, while Rhizobiales were differentially abundant in G uncultivated soils. Regarding functional analysis, soils from SR showed a higher denitrification activity of nitrifiers as well as glucose-related metabolism, while in G soils, bacterial photosynthesis activities were a differential trait. In addition, Actinobacteria abundance was lower in SR-cultivated soils, indicating a higher susceptibility of this phylum to grapevine crop practices. These results allow the development of hypothetical models of the local microbial resources and their contribution to grapevine nutrition, which is highly important to elaborate recommendations for grapevine management to preserve soil health in vine areas of Mendoza.

Spatial and temporal variation of economic resilience and its drivers: Evidence from Chinese cities

Based on panel data of 282 cities in China from 2005 to 2019, this paper constructs an economic resilience evaluation index system in three dimensions and applies the entropy value method to measure it. The two-stage nested Thiel index, kernel density estimation and geographic detector methods are also used to explore the characteristics of their spatial and temporal divergence and their driving factors. We find that the economic resilience of Chinese cities has increased rapidly over the sample period, but with significant spatial variation, with the intra-provincial variation being the main source of the overall variation. Without considering the spatial conditions, the economic resilience of cities has a strong stability. In the case of spatial conditions, spatial factors have a significant impact on cities with low economic resilience, but not on cities with high economic resilience. Differences in technological innovation capabilities are a key driver of spatial divergence in the economic resilience of Chinese cities. The interaction of any two factors enhances their respective effects on the spatial differentiation of economic resilience in Chinese cities. Based on the above findings, cities should actively explore targeted and differentiated ways to improve economic resilience based on their comparative advantages, accelerate the construction of a collaborative improvement mechanism for urban economic resilience, and support the collaborative improvement of urban economic resilience in China. Our findings provide a useful reference for promoting the concerted improvement of economic resilience in Chinese cities.

Optimization method of skeleton network partitioning scheme considering resilience active improvement in power system restoration after typhoon passes through

After a major blackout caused by typhoon, secondary meteorological or geological disasters may also occur, so the secondary fault probability of transmission components in the restoration process is considerably higher than that in the normal operation state. A robust and reliable skeleton network restoration scheme is important to prevent the recurrence of collapse during restoration. Secondary component faults or contingencies are rarely considered in the existing research on transmission system restoration. Given that, this paper proposes a network partitioning scheme considering active resilience improvement of the skeleton network in parallel system restoration after a typhoon passes through. First, the necessity of considering secondary faults in the restoration after the blackout caused by typhoon is analyzed, and a new resilience index considering the impact of secondary faults is proposed. Next, the optimization objectives are proposed, including maximizing system resilience and minimizing restoration operation cost, and the basic partitioning constraints were modeled. Linearized operation constraints considering secondary faults were proposed to consider the resilience index in the partitioning scheme optimization. Then, a multi-objective mixed integer linear programming (MILP) network partitioning model considering the active resilience improvement of the skeleton network was established to mitigate the effect of secondary faults caused by typhoon. Furthermore, the Normalized Normal Constraint (NNC) method and the Variation Coefficient (VC) method were used to solve the multi-objective MILP model. To reduce the scale of the decision space, a swing-bus-based solving simplification strategy was proposed. In this paper, New England 10-unit 39-bus system and IEEE 118-bus system are taken as cases to demonstrate the proposed partitioning scheme optimization method considering the system resilience improvement. The simulation results show that the partitioning schemes obtained can effectively reduce the load loss of the system under the influence of secondary faults, and lead to a more reliable and smooth restoration process of transmission network after the typhoon passes through.

Universal, School-Based Mental Health Program Implemented Among Racially and Ethnically Diverse Youth Yields Equitable Outcomes: Building Resilience for Healthy Kids

Although suicide is a leading cause of mortality among racial and ethnic minority youth, limited data exists regarding the impact of school-based mental health interventions on these populations, specifically. A single-arm pragmatic trial design was utilized to evaluate the equity of outcomes of the universal, school-based mental health coaching intervention, Building Resilience for Healthy Kids. All sixth-grade students at an urban middle school were invited to participate. Students attended six weekly sessions with a health coach discussing goal setting and other resilience strategies. 285 students (86%) participated with 252 (88%) completing both pre- and post-intervention surveys. Students were a mean age of 11.4 years with 55% identifying as girls, 69% as White, 13% as a racial minority, and 18% as Hispanic. Racial minority students exhibited greater improvements in personal and total resilience compared to White students, controlling for baseline scores.

School connectedness and psychological resilience as mediators in the relationship between childhood abuse and suicidal ideation among Chinese adolescents

ABSTRACT Background: Suicide among adolescents is a huge public health concern around the world. Although childhood abuse has been established as a substantial risk factor for suicide behaviours, potential mediators in this relationship remain unclear. Objective: This study aimed to examine the mediating roles of school connectedness and psychological resilience in the association between childhood abuse and suicidal ideation among Chinese high school students. Methods: The sample involved 1607 adolescents from four high schools in Central China. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was conducted to investigate the mediation effects of school connectedness and psychological resilience on the relationship between childhood abuse and suicidal ideation. Results: The prevalence of suicidal ideation during the past week was 21.9%. Childhood abuse was positively related to the development of suicidal ideation directly and indirectly through school connectedness and psychological resilience. School connectedness and psychological resilience were also partial mediators of all three types of childhood abuse (emotional abuse, physical abuse and sexual abuse) when the types were examined separately. Conclusions: Suicidal ideation was widespread among Chinese high school students. Psychological resilience and school connectedness could attenuate the detrimental impact of childhood abuse on suicidal ideation. Findings underscore the improvement of psychological resilience and the connection to the school would be beneficial to suicide prevention among Chinese adolescents with childhood abuse.

Measuring Water Vapor Sorption Hysteresis of Cement Paste through an Optical Fiber Sensor

Water vapor sorption is a powerful tool for the analysis of cement paste, one of the most used substances by mankind. The monitoring of cementitious materials is fundamental for the improvement of infrastructure resilience, which has a deep impact on the economy, the environment, and on society. In this work, a multimode fiber was embedded in cement paste for real-time monitoring of cement paste water vapor sorption. Changes in the reflected light intensity due to the build-up of water in the cement paste’s pores were exploited for this purpose. The sample was 7-day moist cured, and the relative humidity was controlled between 8.9% and 97.6%. Reflected light intensity was converted into a specific surface area of cement paste (133 m2/g) and thickness of water through the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) method and into a pore size distribution through the Barret-Joyner-Halenda (BJH) method. The results achieved through reflected light intensity agree with those found in the literature, validating the usage of this setup for the monitoring of water vapor sorption, breaking away from standard gravimetric measurements.