Review article: Physical vulnerability database for critical infrastructure hazard risk assessments.

A systematic review and data collection:

Critical infrastructure (CI) is increasingly exposed to natural hazards, which can lead to devastating consequences for society. The indirect impacts of infrastructure failures—such as disruptions to energy, transport, water, waste, telecommunication, health, and education services—can significantly hinder recovery efforts and economic stability.

The vulnerability of infrastructure assets to a given hazard is a key component for identifying the potential damage. The vulnerability is expressed through fragility curves, which quantify the likelihood of reaching a certain damage, and vulnerability curves, which quantify the potential physical damage of an asset under different hazard intensities. However, until now, these curves have been scattered across various studies rather than being centralized in an accessible repository. Our latest research addresses this gap by conducting a systematic literature review and developing a publicly available physical vulnerability database.

Key insights from the review & database:

• 1,510+ Fragility and Vulnerability Curves: Covering critical infrastructure sectors, including transportation, energy, telecom, water, waste, health, and education.
• Multiple Hazard Approach: The database compiles curves for flooding, earthquakes, windstorms, and landslides, supporting risk analysts in evaluating different hazard impacts.
• Granular Classification: The review categorizes curves by asset type, and summarizes hazard, exposure and vulnerability characteristics of these curves. These characteristics are also summarized in the database, allowing users to select the most relevant data for their applications.
• Filling Knowledge Gaps: While this database enhances accessibility, gaps remain—especially for telecommunication infrastructure curves and windstorm-related curves beyond the energy sector.
• Regional Data Disparities: Data coverage in South America, Central America, and Africa is still limited, highlighting the need for further studies in these regions.
• Seamless Integration for Risk Models: The database is designed for easy adoption into existing risk models, ensuring a more standardized and comprehensive approach to infrastructure resilience planning.
• Future Directions: The research emphasizes the importance of improving data availability and consistency, recommending that future studies focus on underrepresented regions and infrastructure sectors.

By synthesizing global knowledge into a single accessible resource, we aim to empower decision-makers, researchers, and practitioners with the tools they need to strengthen infrastructure resilience worldwide.

Blog entry by Sadhana Nirandjan.

Resources:

Dataset: https://zenodo.org/records/13889558

Read the full paper here: https://nhess.copernicus.org/articles/24/4341/2024/nhess-24-4341-2024.html

How to cite: Sadhana Nirandjan et al. (2024) ‘Review article: Physical vulnerability database for critical infrastructure hazard risk assessments – a systematic review and data collection’, Natural hazards and earth system sciences, 24(12), pp. 4341–4368. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4341-2024.