A new study in the US has revealed that economic losses experienced in just a single day from disruptions could range from $8m to $250m depending on the length and severity of the incident.
An analysis published by College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cyber Security assistant professor Dr Unal Tatar and colleagues shares new insights on the potential economic consequences of infrastructure failures.
The resilience of America’s critical infrastructure networks has been tested over the last year by an increasing number of serious disasters – both natural and manmade.
The study published in a recent issue of journal Risk Analysis, uses the model on a highway transportation network in Virginia for the purpose of this analysis.
The research group developed a new analytical model that simulates economic losses caused by disruptions of varying lengths and severity on the 10 most impacted critical infrastructure sectors: state and local general government; miscellaneous professional, scientific, and technical services; administrative and support services; federal government (nondefense); management of companies and enterprises; wholesale trade; computer systems design and related services; other real estate; insurance carriers and related activities; and construction.
While risk-informed physical network models and economic models have been well-studied, there is limited study of how physical features of network performance interact with sector-specific economic performance, particularly as these networks recover from disruptions of varying durations.
The Virginia highway scenario relied on publicly available daily traffic data in a specific region which includes 16 cities and counties. The region’s metropolitan area accounted for more than $100bn in GDP as of 2018, according to the study. M