Exploring Vulnerability and Interdependency of UK Infrastructure Using Key-Linkages Analysis

Abstract

It has been argued the UK has experienced significant underinvestment in critical infrastructure over the last two decades. This in turn has resulted in infrastructure that is less capable of assisting the UK economy to grow. This article seeks to undertake an in-depth analysis of the inter-linkages and economic contributions from infrastructure within the UK. It explores the relationship between nine infrastructure sectors and how these sectors contribute to the rest of the UK economy using keylinkage analysis. Each infrastructure sector is shown to be unique in the way it interacts with other economic sectors and in the form of contribution it makes to the economy overall. Infrastructure is found to be a necessary and important part of economic development. The analysis finds that over the last 23 years there has been a decline in the relative economic contribution from infrastructure to UK GVA. Only two infrastructure sectors increased their relative contribution to GVA since 1992. These were the water transport sector and sewerage and sanitary services sector. Railway transport and gas distribution have had the largest relative decline in contribution towards UK GVA with relative contributions decreasing by over 50 % since 1992. The three most important infrastructure sectors contributing to UK GDP are land transport, electricity production and distribution and telecommunications respectively.

Criticality analysis of a country’s transport network via an agent-based supply chain model

“…Multiple case studies provide detailed accounts of the propagation mechanisms, including studies of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake in Japan [13][14][15] and the 2011 floods in Thailand 16,17 . These mechanisms are often studied using input-output models [18][19][20] , computable general equilibrium models (CGEs) 21 or hybrid models 22 . Some of these models explicitly represent the transport sectors to capture the impact of transport infrastructure destruction on the rest of the economy 23,24 .…”

The water‐energy nexus: future water resource availability and its implications on UK thermal power generation

“…Infrastructure interdependencies; how an event in one network can impact upon another, is an area where internationally there is increasing academic interest (Utne et al ., ; Booth, ; Lienert & Lochner, ; Kelly et al ., ). In the case of the global water‐energy nexus this is particularly so where water availability is already an issue, and knowing how the water and energy infrastructure interdependencies may in future disrupt is an important consideration (Hussey & Pittock, ; Li et al ., ).…”

Decomposition Analysis for the Comparison and the Comprehension of Conventional Input-Output Impacts’ Indicators: An Empirical Paradigm

“…I-O multipliers are used from the policy-makers for the management of developmental programming and constitute a common tool for the investigation of economic perspectives (Chisari et al, 2019;Freytag and Fricke, 2017;Guang and Wen, 2020;Guerra and Sancho, 2012;Haslop et al, 2017;Humavindu and Stage, 2013;Ivanova, 2014;Kakderi and Tasapoulou, 2017;Kelly et al, 2016;Lopes and Neder, 2017;Mariolis and Soklis, 2020;Mastronardi et al, 2012;Meng et al, 2019;Muller-Hansen et al, 2017;Nguyen et al, 2018;Nguyen et al, 2019;Romero et al, 2019;Sancho, 2013;Thomassin, 2018). Dietzenbacher (2005) had underlined that all the I-O multipliers are not the same suitable for all the occasions, their interpretations are differentiated and their usefulness are depended on the problem that one addresses.…”