A Survey of Network Theoretic Approaches for Risk Analysis of Complex Infrastructure Systems
Sarah LaRocca, Seth David Guikema · 2011
Many critical infrastructure systems are comprised of complex physical, geographical, and logical networks. Such systems include electric power, drinking water, wastewater, cellular communication, internet, and transportation. These systems are vulnerable to hazards, both natural (e.g. hurricanes and earthquakes) and man-made (e.g. terrorism and accidents), which can induce failures in network elements and reduce system performance. In conducting risk and reliability analyses for complex infrastructure systems, network theory has been used to understand the effect of perturbations of individual network elements on overall system performance. In this paper, we present a survey of research that has employed this network theoretic approach and provide a discussion of future research needs in the field.