Natural hazards might damage elements of Critical Infrastructures thus producing perturbations on the delivered services. In addition, interdependency phenomena interconnecting infrastructures may amplify impacts through cascading effects involving different infrastructures. In context of EU FP7 research project CIPRNet, I am developing a Decision Support System (DSS) aiming at predicting the possible effects of natural hazards on the services provided by critical infrastructures by exploring the whole chain of Risk Analysis. The system employs modeling and simulation techniques to forecast the effects of natural hazards, tools for evaluating the impact on critical infrastructures and for prediction of the consequences that the loss of services might produce on the population and primary services, on the environment and the industrial sector. This system will be used during crisis scenarios, to suggest actions which could help maximizing the service level of systems.
More information on this topic can be found in the following publication: A. Di Pietro, L. La Porta, Jose R. Marti, M. Pollino, C. Romani, V. Rosato, A. Tofani, “A Decision Support System for Emergency Management of Critical Infrastructures subjected to Natural Hazards” in CRITIS, Int. Conference in Critical Information Infrastructures Security, 2014.