Critical infrastructure and disasters

The current focus of the WRR on the intersection between natural hazards, climate change and social vulnerabilities, and adaptation gives rise to questions about the relationship between “human-made” disasters and vulnerability, and the implications for enhancing disaster risk reduction. While, in general, very centralized critical infrastructure systems (such as electricity networks) can lead to greater cascading effects, affecting multiple regions and sectors, than is the case with more decentralized systems, the challenge is to accurately capture these impacts — and to develop suitable indicators.

In this area, much work and research remains to be carried out. It is difficult to devise the right indicators to capture this type of risk on a global scale, since many cascading effects are heavily influenced by specific local settings.