Linn Svegrup

Capturing Societal Interdependencies from a Flow Perspective – Part I: Method and Model

A method and a model are presented aiming at enabling collection, structuring and analyzes of data concerning interdependencies between critical infrastructures and societal functions. A key distinction of the approach is the separation of actors and flows, where dependencies between actors, ranging from small municipal authorities to international private companies, are mediated through flows. Flows is a collective term for goods and services, essential for a functioning society, that different actors either depend upon or influence, e.g. electricity, money, or information. The approach enables capturing dependencies that might otherwise easily be overlooked or difficult to capture with other means and enables aggregation and analyses of data from a wide spectrum of societal actors. In a conference sister paper, application of the approach is presented. It is concluded that the approach fills a research gap and is applicable for the study of interdependencies from a more holistic cross-societal viewpoint. (Less)

Capturing Societal Interdependencies from a Flow perspective – Part II: Application

Societal functions constitute of public and private organisations and companies that provide commodities and services that are vi-tal for the functioning of the modern society. The public are highly dependent on these vital societal services and commodities, such as power supply, health care and education. In this paper we present an application of a method for collecting and structuring data and a simulation model with the aim of capturing interdependencies between societal functions based on the concept of flows. In this paper several types of analyses that can be performed with the collected data are exemplified. It is concluded that the information gained by the analyses performed in the present paper can constitute a valuable contribution to facilitate a common understanding of the effect of interdependencies between a wide variety of societal actors as well as support decisions related to holistic cross-societal risk and vulnerability management efforts. (Less)