Resilience capacities assessment for critical infrastructures disruption: The READ framework (part 1)

We suggest an approach to assessing critical infrastructure resilience (CIR) as a step towards informed resource allocation and operation when planning to cope with CI disruptions in the context of emergency management or multi stakeholder planning. The approach is capabilities-based, where a capability is defined as a combination of assets, resources and routines specifically arranged to accomplish a critical task and assure a key objective. The capabilities (intra- and inter-institutional) are grouped into clusters according to the resilience phase (preventive, absorptive, adaptive and restorative) where they are invoked; and according to the system type (technical, operational, social and economic) which they belong to. An overall resilience capability building cycle completes the framework, enabling a systematic implementation of relevant capabilities and making gap analysis with regard to resilience deficits. A simplified test case exemplifying the use of the framework in the context of a regional public-private collaboration for CIR is provided

Resilience capacities assessment for critical infrastructures disruption: READ pilot applications (part 2)

The study aims at supporting the stakeholders involved in the emergency management (EM) activities to tackle the challenges related to scenarios involving interdependent critical infrastructure (CI) systems, by building resilience. The primary objective of implementing the capability-based approach is to enable and foster collaborative EM in the context of public-private collaborations for CI resilience. The READ framework and related tool have been tested to support stakeholders' resilience capacities assessment with respect to cross-border disruptions and thus identify the main areas where progress is needed. Two pilot cases were used to validate the approach and demonstrate its applicability in the context of regional public-private collaborations for critical infrastructure protection and Resilience with different degree of development and level of maturity, namely Basque Country (Spain) and Lombardy Region (Italy). The practitioners' feedback from both application cases confirmed the usefulness of such approach and helped to identify areas for future research and improvement