Understanding cascading risks through real-world interdependent urban infrastructure

The prevalence of cascading failures is growing as infrastructure becomes more interdependent and climate change exacerbates more extreme hazards. After such events, the general focus is on the magnitude of direct damage or loss; it is less understood how events trigger failures throughout other infrastructure. In this work, we present a methodology to model direct and indirect impacts from an event for a multi-system network, including interconnected infrastructure and end users. We perform a case study of New Zealand’s second largest city, Christchurch, investigating electricity, water supply, and wastewater networks following a range of coastal flooding events and climate change scenarios. 

Reliability Engineering & System Safety (2024)