Assessing resilience at different scales: from single assets to complex systems
03 Oct 2023
Read more about a novel and holistic resilience assessment framework
Nowadays, critical infrastructure and systems are getting more and more interconnected, while facing increasing and more intensive hazards: from man-made to natural ones, including those exacerbated by effects of the climate change.
The demand for their robustness and resiliency against all these threats is finding ground to organizations or states’ ambitions, implementations, and policies. Moreover, their distributed network spanning from local areas to cities, from regions to cross-country extension, make them a target for malicious actions aimed to damage or even disrupt their critical supplied and therefore the availability of the service they deliver.
Our paper focuses on a review from an engineering perspective of past efforts (namely those related to the H2020 Secure Gas project) and provides evidence of application cases where the network/system dimension of the critical infrastructure is a key point to be taken into account and to be safeguarded.
The aim of this study is to present a novel and holistic resilience assessment framework, applicable to various types of assets, towards various hazards and at different various scales.
The methodological approach is specified, and the methodology’s applicability towards all the spatial levels is highlighted and described.
Two application case studies (based on EU-funded programmes) are presented, mainly referred to energy infrastructures and climate change hazards.
The application cases demonstrate the ability of the methodology to adjust to different spatial levels and spotlight the need for inserting the spatial factor in the design philosophy for the resiliency planning and the robustness methods, regarding the current and future demands.
Special mention is given to the demand for connection between resilience planning and the resilience payback in economic and insurance-related terms.
Finally, an outlook on future perspectives and potentials in the application of resilience at local, urban and territorial/national level is described, with incoming and emerging threats at local and global level.
