Modeling and Analyzing the Impact of Geo-Referenced Hazards on Critical Infrastructure

Abstract

Critical infrastructures such as energy, water and transportation systems are essential for maintaining social stability and economic prosperity. However, these systems are increasingly threatened by natural disasters, technical failure and man-made hazards. The interconnectedness of modern infrastructures increases the risk of cascading effects, where the failure of one component can lead to widespread disruption in multiple systems. Addressing these challenges requires advanced tools to model, simulate and analyze the impact of hazards on critical infrastructures. This work extends the NEXUS Simulation Framework by integrating new modules for the simulation of hazard events. The Environment module and the Hazard module have been developed to manage and process hazard events based on their type, timing and location, allowing detailed analysis of cascading effects. These modules are complemented by an extended frontend functionality to create hazards in a graphical user interface as well as the extension of the database to store hazard event lists. The modular architecture supports future extensions and scalability and facilitates the further development of hazard modeling. The extended framework was evaluated using simulation experiments in which various hazard scenarios were tested, including overloads, transformer failures and bomb explosions. The results show that the framework is able to simulate hazards and their effects on infrastructures. In the simulation-based experiments, two power grid configurations were compared to assess the resilience of connected and disconnected systems under stress conditions. By extending the capabilities of the NEXUS simulator framework, this work contributes to the development of innovative tools for understanding and mitigating the impact of hazards on critical infrastructure. The work lays a foundation for future research that will enable the creation of more resilient infrastructure systems in the face of evolving challenges.