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Project title

INFRAstructure cLimate change risk considering Interdependencies and Cascading hazards

Primary Funding Agency

Environmental Protection Agency

Co-Funding Organisation(s)

n/a

Lead Organisation

Roughan & O' Donovan

Lead Applicant

Mark Tucker

Project Abstract

The INFRALINC project will develop a design for a full-scale study to assess the risk posed to Critical Infrastructure (CI) in Ireland due to climate change. The project will have a specific focus on risk calculation with consideration of interdependencies between different infrastructure types, as well as cascading hazards. In line with previous research on the topic of climate risks to CI, the INFRALINC project will consider interdependencies in terms of the various links between different types of infrastructure, consisting of dependencies in both the likelihood and potential consequences of one infrastructure failure on another (e.g. disruption of the electricity network in turn disrupting the supply of drinking water). Equally, cascading hazards will also be considered, whereby extreme events increase in progression over time and generate unexpected secondary events of strong impact (e.g. heavy rainfall events which result in flooding may also precipitate landslides, having a secondary impact). In order to achieve the objectives of INFRALINC, a user-driven approach is proposed. Acknowledging that no infrastructural risk assessment framework can be successfully implemented without understanding the administrative processes, existing tools and data availability / data requirements of the infrastructure owners themselves, the INFRALINC consortium includes some of the key owners of the critical infrastructure networks in Ireland. The project will capitalise on the various tools developed for multimodal risk assessment of infrastructure over the past decade both in Ireland and abroad. The project will start from the findings of the EPA funded CIViC and TACT projects, and will utilise project outputs from the FP7 INFRARISK, FP7 RAIN and H2020 EU-CIRCLE projects to suggest appropriate tools for quantitative risk analysis including hazard assessment, probabilistic failure modelling, vulnerability assessment and consequence analysis.

Grant Approved

�70,248.70

Research Hub

Climate Change

Research Theme

n/a

Start Date

01/03/2022

Initial Projected Completion Date

01/03/2023