Assessing Socioeconomic Impacts of Cascading Infrastructure Disruptions in a Dynamic Human-Infrastructure Network

Abstract

The functionality of modern cities relies heavily on interdependent infrastructure systems such as those for water, power, and transportation. Disruptions often propagate within and across physical infrastructure networks and result in catastrophic consequences. The reaction of communities to disasters (e.g., seeking alternatives) may further transfer and aggravate the burden on surviving infrastructures, which may facilitate cascading secondary disruptions. Hence, a holistic analysis framework that integrates infrastructure interdependencies and community behaviors is needed to evaluate a city's vulnerability to disruptions and to assess the impact of a disaster. U.S. Army doctrine requires that commanders understand, visualize, and describe the infrastructure component of the Joint Operating Environment to accomplish the Army's missions of protecting, restoring, and developing infrastructure. To this end, a game-theoretical equilibrium model has been developed in a multilayer infrastructure network, to systematically investigate the mutual influence between the infrastructures and the communities. In this model, two types of infrastructure failure patterns are formulated to capture general network interdependencies; network equilibrium is extended into infrastructure and community systems to address redistribution of demand for life-supporting resources; the societal impact of disasters is estimated based on resource demand loss, cost increase, and total infrastructure failure. A real-world case study was implemented to demonstrate the proposed model and algorithm, and to reveal insights.

Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely (SMART) document : utilized in assessing socioeconomic impacts of cascading infrastructure disruptions

“…The HISA pilot study of Maiduguri, Nigeria, is a beta application of the HISA process for a 12-square-mile region in northeastern Nigeria that includes the municipal jurisdiction of Maiduguri (Lu et al 2016). Maiduguri is located in the heart of the rebel activity of Boko Haram (BH) and experiences frequent attacks on its infrastructure.…”

“…The question sets are designed to capture how people interface with infrastructure while conducting daily activities. The case study of Maiduguri, Nigeria, focused the scope of this initial user-characterization and provided a geographic context (Lu et al 2016). For each infrastructure, the group of researchers would collect remotely sourced information about the area and then extrapolate characteristics about the infrastructure under investigation.…”

“…For the most effective use of this work, researchers recommend referring to the detailed review of capabilities and indicators within the human-infrastructure network in a previous HISA reports from ERDC-CERL researchers, Assessing Socioeconomic Impacts of Cascading Infrastructure Disruptions in a Dynamic Human-Infrastructure Network (Lu et al 2016) and Assessing Socioeconomic Impacts of Cascading Infrastructure Disruptions Using the Capability Approach (Wang et al 2016).…”