Development of a Decision Support System using a Critical Infrastructure Interdependency Modelling Framework

Abstract

Critical Infrastructures (CI) such as electricity, water, fuel, telecommunication and road networks are a crucial factor for secure and reliable operation of a society. In a non-emergency situation, most businesses operate on an individual infrastructure. However, after major natural disasters such as earthquakes, the conflicts and complex interdependencies among the different infrastructures can cause significant disturbances, as a failure can propagate from one infrastructure to another. The aim of this project is to develop a customizable Decision Support System (DSS) that has the capability to integrate electricity, water and road networks through a simulation framework. The framework uses a damage map of electricity and water network components and integrates them with road access times to these damaged components for estimating the electricity and water outage times in a region. The results can be used for recovery planning, identification of vulnerabilities, and adding redundancies in an infrastructure network.