Critical Infrastructure as Complex Emergent Systems
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Authors
Lewis, Ted G.
Center for Homeland Defense and Security
Mechanical Engineering Department
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2011
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Abstract
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is charged with “build[ing]
a safer, more secure, and more resilient America by enhancing protection of the Nation’s
Critical infrastructure and key resources (CI/KR) …” using an all-hazards approach.
The effective implementation of this strategy hinges upon our understanding of
catastrophes and their potential effect on the functioning of our infrastructure.
Unfortunately, there has been no unifying theory of catastrophe to guide decisionmaking,
preparedness, or response. We do not know, for example, why some catastrophes
are “worse” than others, or if the rate of catastrophes is increasing or decreasing.
Furthermore, DHS has adopted a risk-informed decision-making process, but has done
so without defining key terms, such as “risk”, or quantifying the primary elements of risk
– definitions that are badly needed before setting a course of action and allocating
resources. We present a framework, based upon network science and normal accident
theory that can be used to guide policy decisions for homeland security. We show that
exceedance probability, which is commonly used by the insurance industry to set hazard
insurance premiums, provides a unifying policy framework for homeland security
investments. Furthermore, since the exceedance probability for catastrophic
consequences obeys a power law, we define resilience, explicitly, as the exponent of that
power law. This allows a mathematical definition of resilience that resonates with our
innate sense of resilience. That is, the more resilient a given system, the larger it’s
resiliency exponent. Such an approach also allows one to classify hazards as ‘high’ or
‘low’ risk, according to the resiliency exponent, and to guide investments towards
prevention or response. This framework provides a more rigorous foundation for
Federal investment decisions and a rational basis for policies to best protect the Nation’s
infrastructure.
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This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.