Resilience of Critical Infrastructure Systems: A Systematic Literature Review of Measurement Frameworks

Abstract

Critical infrastructures such as transportation, power, telecommunication, water supply, and hospitals play a vital role in effectively managing post-disaster responses. The resilience of critical infrastructures should be incorporated in the planning and designing phase based on the risk assessment in a particular geographic area. However, the framework to assess critical infrastructure resilience (CIR) is variably conceptualised. Therefore, the objective of this study was to critically appraise the existing CIR assessment frameworks developed since the adoption of the Sendai Framework in 2015 with the hazard focus on earthquakes. The preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) method was used for the selection of the 24 most relevant studies, and these were analysed to delineate existing frameworks, models, and concepts. The study found that there are wide-ranging disparities among the existing frameworks to assess the infrastructure resilience, and it has become a key challenge to prioritise resilience-based investment in the infrastructure sector. Furthermore, key attributes such as performance indicators, emergency aspects, and damage assessment need to be considered for different disaster phases—ex-ante, during, and ex-post—to improve the long-term resilience of critical infrastructure. Subsequently, an integrated and adaptable infrastructure resilience assessment framework is proposed for proper critical infrastructure planning and resilience-based investment decision making.

Keywords

• critical infrastructure
• disaster
• earthquake
• infrastructure resilience
• indicators