Ana Laugé

Critical infrastructure dependencies: A holistic, dynamic and quantitative approach

Abstract The proper functioning of critical infrastructures is crucial to societal well-being. However, critical infrastructures are not isolated, but instead are tightly coupled, creating a complex system of interconnected infrastructures. Dependencies between critical infrastructures can cause a failure to propagate from one critical infrastructure to other critical infrastructures, aggravating and prolonging the societal impact. For this reason, critical infrastructure operators must understand the complexity of critical infrastructures and the effects of critical infrastructure dependencies. However, a major problem is posed by the fact that detailed information about critical infrastructure dependencies is highly sensitive and is usually not publicly available. Moreover, except for a small number of holistic and dynamic research efforts, studies are limited to a few critical infrastructures and generally do not consider time-dependent behavior. This paper analyzes how a failed critical infrastructure that cannot deliver products and services impacts other critical infrastructures, and how a critical infrastructure is affected when another critical infrastructure fails. The approach involves a holistic analysis involving multiple critical infrastructures while incorporating a dynamic perspective based on the time period that a critical infrastructure is non-operational and how the impacts evolve over time. This holistic approach, which draws on the results of a survey of critical infrastructure experts from several countries, is intended to assist critical infrastructure operators in preparing for future crises.

Enhancing resilience: implementing resilience building policies against major industrial accidents

The proper functioning of critical infrastructures (CIs) is vital for societys welfare. A disruption in one of them may lead to a crisis that affects not only the CI where the triggering event occurs but also the whole society. Therefore, it is fundamental to increase the whole systems resilience level. This paper defines resilience as the capacity of a system to prevent a crisis occurrence, to reduce the consequences from failure, and to recover rapidly and efficiently. Although there is much information about the definition of resilience, literature still lacks to provide a detailed holistic prescription about what activities should be carried out to improve the resilience level of the CIs and the society as a whole. This paper defines twelve policies that help to enhance the resilience level of all the stakeholders involved in crisis management, using information gathered from experts and examining several case studies.

Group model building: a collaborative modelling methodology applied to critical infrastructure protection

Large crises management, affecting CIs needs multidisciplinary knowledge including technical, economical, social, political, legal and managerial knowledge. Being these crises international a huge variety of agents is involved in their response. This situation concludes in a set of stakeholders who only have fragmented knowledge. In the presence of dispersed and incomplete knowledge, and of fragmented and disrupted crisis management, the collaborative approach group model building (GMB), where modelling experts unify fragmented, tacit knowledge from domain experts, is a valuable option. However, GMB has been little used in CIP. We have done so in the context a European project on crisis management of large-scale power cut crises. Particulars in CIP – variety of time horizons, different national perspectives, and challenges to create an international approach, among others – require adaptations in the GMB approach. This paper describes such adaptations and provides insights for better future collaborative modelling.

Collaborative Modeling of Awareness in Critical Infrastructure Protection

While awareness is acknowledged as a key factor in crisis management, much is vague as to the meaning of the awareness concept, its measurement, how awareness impacts the lifecycle of a crisis and how awareness can be promoted. This vagueness, we hypothesize, potentially reflects the immaturity of crisis management theory. This in turn obscures the landscape of leading crisis indicators, which then leaves crucial clues for the development of crisis management approaches in the attention shadow. In the absence of codified knowledge, the collaborative approach known as Group Model Building employing system dynamics, where modeling experts elicit and unify fragmented, tacit knowledge from domain experts, is worth exploring. We have done so in the context a European project on crisis management of large-scale power cut crises. We describe our preliminary results and propose a concept model relating awareness, leading indicators, and policies for crisis prevention and mitigation.

The Role of Critical Infrastructures’ Interdependencies on the Impacts Caused by Natural Disasters

Recent natural disasters have highlighted society’s dependency on the correct functioning of critical infrastructures (CIs). The existing interdependencies among CIs complicate matters further, since a failure in a CI can spread through cascading effects to other infrastructures or sectors. Thus society’s welfare becomes severely affected, complicating emergency response and increasing the total impact of natural disasters. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the important role that affected CIs have on the overall impact of a natural disaster. We have developed a simulation model that represents a huge storm affecting the energy system, transport and food CIs on a small island. Through this simulation model we can show the effects associated with CIs and the effects of applying crisis management policies.

Three complementary approaches for crisis management

Crisis is a wide concept which may include a diverse set of events and behaviour patterns. Thus, crisis management requires complementary approaches that provide a more complete perspective. This paper describes a useful methodology to analyse crises from a multiple perspective approach that contributes to acquire a more deep understanding about crises and their management. The first approach focuses on the peak of the crisis paying attention to how to respond to the crisis–triggering event and to the cascading effects that amplify the crisis impact. The second approach adopts a long–term perspective, identifying the relationship between the policies implemented on the pre–crisis phase and the subsequent impacts on the crisis peak and post–crisis phases. The third approach researches on the learning process from one crisis to the next one.

Analysis of disasters impacts and the relevant role of critical infrastructures for crisis management improvement

Purpose – Disasters are complex phenomena, by diverse nature and whose management is complicated. An efficient analysis of potential impacts that may result as consequence of a disaster has to be conducted to improve the preparation and response in face of future events. Design/methodology/approach – A review of impact evaluation methodologies and real disasters’ impacts has been performed to develop an impact indicators’ framework. Then, a questionnaire has been administered to critical infrastructure (CI) operators to identify CI dependencies and their consequences. Findings – A proper impact analysis improves learning about the consequences of a disaster and the way those impacts should be managed. Moreover, current impact evaluation methodologies do not make special focus on CIs even if their proper functioning is essential for society’s welfare. Crisis managers such as civil protection, emergency services and local authorities among others need to be aware of the importance of critical infrastructure...

Resilience: Approach, Definition and Building Policies

Advances in Critical Infrastructures (CIs) have increased the society’s welfare but at the same time they have made us to be more dependent on CIs proper functioning. In light of this situation it is essential to create resilient systems in order to avoid a crisis occurrence or respond in the most rapid and effective way. Through an extensive literature review, two different perspectives regarding the resilience concept have been identified. Some authors define resilience as the capacity to respond to crises reactively, whereas some others extend this perspective by adding the proactive capacity to avoid the occurrence of a crisis. Finally, some principles to improve the resilience level of the organizations have been defined.

Collaborative Methodology for Crisis Management Knowledge Integration and Visualization

Crisis management needs intensive cooperation of a significant amount of stakeholders. These stakeholders need to cooperate during the critical peak of crisis, and also during crisis preparation and long term recovery phases. In addition, agents have to learn from each other and from previous events. However, they have different perspectives based on their backgrounds, previous experiences and interests. Collaborative modelling methodologies can help on this knowledge gathering and integration process. This paper presents Group Model Building collaborative methodology and its use on a crisis management research project, where a set of international and multidisciplinary domain experts discussed and contributed to three simulation models development. Through several exercises experts shared and integrated their perspectives, which were initially fragmented. Domain experts also took part in models validation. Resulting models constitute a more holistic, integrated and agreed visualization of crises than the ones each agent had at the beginning of the modelling process.

Creating and Testing Holistic Crisis Management Strategies: The Crisis Management Balanced Scorecard and Systems Modelling

A priori evaluation and monitoring of crisis management strategy effectiveness should lead to more effective use of scarce and expensive resources. We propose a two part process: First, a Crisis Management Balanced Scorecard (CMBSC), based on Kaplan and Norton’s Balanced Scorecard, guides the monitoring and implementation of a crisis management strategy. In support of the CMBSC we propose a systems-based structuring of the tangible and intangible concerns that are the basis of crisis management.