Estimating economic loss from cascading infrastructure failure: a perspective on modelling interdependency (original) (raw)

Static and dynamic metrics of economic resilience for interdependent infrastructure and industry sectors

Infrastructures are needed for maintaining functionality and stability of society, while being put under substantial stresses from natural or man-made shocks. Since avoiding shock is impossible, increased focus is given to infrastructure resilience, which denotes the ability to recover and operate under new stable regimes. This paper addresses the problem of estimating, quantifying and planning for economic resilience of interdependent infrastructures, where interconnectedness adds to problem complexity. The risk-based economic input–output model enterprise, a useful tool for measuring the cascading effects of interdependent failures, is employed to introduce a framework for economic resilience estimation. We propose static and dynamic measures for resilience that confirm to well-known resilience concepts of robustness, rapidity, redundancy, and resourcefulness. The quantitative metrics proposed here (static resilience metric, time averaged level of operability, maximum loss of functionality, time to recovery) guide a preparedness decision making framework to promote interdependent economic resilience estimation. Using the metrics we introduce new multi-dimensional resilience functions that allow multiple resource allocation scenarios. Through an example problem we demonstrate the usefulness of these functions in guiding resource planning for building resilience.

Modeling Economic Impacts to Critical Infrastructures

2005

retains a nonexclusive, royalty-free license to publish or reproduce the published form of this contribution, or to allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes. Los Alamos National Laboratory requests that the publisher identify this article as work performed under the

Analyzing cascading effects within infrastructure sectors for consequence reduction

2009 IEEE Conference on Technologies for Homeland Security, 2009

Cascading effects of infrastructure failures from terrorist attacks or natural hazards can greatly increase the magnitude of impacts from a failure of any given infrastructure. Interdependencies among infrastructure sectors in part drive these effects. Capturing how interdependencies operate and heighten impacts to develop procedures and policies to improve recovery is less well understood. This paper first presents an accounting system to identify where interdependencies are likely to occur. Second, given interdependencies, ways to portray vulnerabilities from interdependencies and estimate magnitude with qualitative or integer scales are presented from prior research and event databases. The methodology to quantify interdependencies and associated cascades builds on work on electric power outages and impacts they had on other infrastructure, such as oil and natural gas, electricity, transportation, and water. The method can be used to analyze connections between restoration times and types of interconnections failed and alternative technologies to reduce impacts of cascades.

Modeling Economic Impacts to Critical Infrastructures in a System Dynamics Framework

2005

Our paper presents a model of economic impacts arising from disruptions to critical infrastructures. This model is a component of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Decision Support System (CIP/DSS) which simulates the dynamics of a set of interconnected individual infrastructures. We use factors of production (such as energy, telecommunications, and labor) from the CIP/DSS model to estimate the effects of interruptions to these infrastructures. The system dynamics approach we use is compared to equilibrium-based approaches such as input-output modeling. Our method allows an understanding of the economic benefits of various protective measures. We incorporate non-equilibrium dynamics that arise from infrastructure disruptions to evaluate economic impacts such as lost revenues and lost sales. The results from a disruption due to an infectious disease outbreak are presented. We show that imposition of quarantine on a metropolitan area creates large economic impacts as compared to ...

Optimizing Investment for Recovery in Interdependent Infrastructure

2007 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'07), 2007

Reliable operation of complicated interdependent infrastructures, (including transportation, electric power, oil, gas, telecommunications and emergency services) is vital to developed economies. This paper develops a method to estimate the "time to recover" from a disruption in such interdependent infrastructures. It also develops a mathematical model and solution procedure to optimize investments in interconnected infrastructures to achieve improvements in "time to recover" subject to a budget constraint. These methods are illustrated on an example gas-electric infrastructure network.

A framework to assess the social and economic impacts on communities and industries due to loss in serviceability of infrastructure networks after floods

Risk Analysis VII, 2010

The functioning of communities and industries depends on the infrastructure network. Daily activities (such as production, shipping, supply chain, etc., for industries and commuting to work, business, schooling, etc., for communities) are performed efficiently with the help of the infrastructure network. It is vital for the infrastructure to function efficiently at all times. However, during disasters, either manmade or natural, the functioning or serviceability of the infrastructure could be severely affected. This in turn has an impact on the activities/services of communities and industries. These activities and services contribute socially and economically. When their functioning is affected and usually reduced in the case of disasters, their social and economic contribution is reduced. This reduction can be assessed as social and economic impact on communities and industries due to reduction in serviceability of the infrastructure network. This paper presents a framework that establishes a relationship between the services and activities of communities and industries and infrastructure. The paper also provides a unique approach to assess social and economic impacts due to serviceability reduction of infrastructure after floods. The framework is a step towards providing valuable information for decision making during the quick recovery phase after disaster.

Vulnerability of Interdependent Urban Infrastructure Networks: Equilibrium after Failure Propagation and Cascading Impacts

The functionality of modern cities relies heavily on interdependent infrastructure systems such as those for water, power, and transportation. Disruptions often propagate within and across physical infrastructure networks and result in catastrophic consequences. The reaction of communities to disasters (e.g., seeking alternative resource sources) may further transfer and aggravate the burden on surviving infrastructures, which may facilitate cascading secondary disruptions. Hence, a holistic analysis framework that integrates infrastructure interdepen-dencies and human community behaviors is needed to evaluate a city's vulnerability to disruptions and to assess the impact of a disaster. To this end, we develop a game-theoretical equilibrium model in a multilayer infrastructure network to systematically investigate the mutual influence between the infrastructures and the communities. Two types of infrastructure failure patterns are formulated to capture general network interdependencies; network equilibrium is extended into infrastructure and community systems to address redistribution of demand for life-supporting resources; the societal impact of disasters is estimated based on communities' resource demand loss, cost increase, as well as total infrastructure failures. A real-world case study based on Maiduguri, Nigeria, is implemented to demonstrate the proposed model and algorithm , and to reveal insights.