Identifying Extreme Risks in Critical Infrastructure Interdependencies

Critical infrastructures like our power generation facilities and water supply form highly interconnected networks that are mutually dependent and any failure can cascade through the network, resulting in devastating impact on health, safety and the economy. These catastrophic events/disruptions can be triggered by environmental accidents, geological/weather phenomena, disease pandemics, etc. The disruptions can be caused/exacerbated by their being unexpected, but they may actually be expected if relevant data have been accounted for. To help account for and thereby anticipate such disruptions, one way is to identify potential unforeseen interdependencies among infrastructure components that can lead to extreme disruptions upon some failure in the network. This paper shows how a simulation model for cascading failures and a risk analysis/optimization approach can be applied to search for unforeseen interdependencies and failure points that give rise to the highest risk in a network.

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