Proactive risk assessment of critical infrastructures

Critical infrastructures (CIs) like energy, information, water or food supply systems, for example, are highly interconnected and complex systems. Risk assessment of such interdependent systems is challenging; the identification of the interdependencies as well as the identification of potential consequences in case of disturbances is demanding. The existing knowledge of the dependencies and interdependencies and related potential risk of cascading effects is still insufficient to provide immediate solutions. Therefore, novel proactive, systematic tools for risks assessment are needed. In order to investigate what the novel risk factors of CIs and their implications are, foresight and scenario methods as a tool for analysing risks and interdependencies of CIs are studied. A case study of the use of foresight and scenario methods in a proactive risk assessment of telecommunication and electric power infrastructures is presented.