A vulnerability model for assessing the impact of multi-hazards on critical infrastructures

Different natural and anthropogenic hazards can affect critical infrastructures (CI) causing physical damages to infrastructure assets, and the possible interruption of the services provided by these infrastructures. Since CI are recognized, by definition, as vital for the society (Kröger and Zio, 2011), their interruption can lead to serious and heavy socio-economic consequences. CI are complex systems with multiple assets that contribute to the ability to provide a service. These assets are interconnected between each other, so that an impact on an infrastructure can propagate to other interconnected. The processes that can affect CI are very different in nature, magnitude and frequency. The European Project Threvi2 tackles these problems by defining a comprehensive ontology for the infrastructures systems, the interconnections among infrastructures and the hazards that can affect these infrastructures. An important component of this ontology is the vulnerability model, which allows to connect the hazard ontology with the infrastructure ontology by assessing if, how and to what extent a specific hazard can affect an infrastructure system.