Measures of robustness for networked critical infrastructure: An empirical comparison on four electrical grids

John W. Galbraith and Luca Iuliani

International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, 2019, vol. 27, issue C

Abstract: Evaluating the robustness of critical infrastructure is important for good decisions and for communicating progress toward greater robustness. Nonetheless there is no widely accepted measure analogous to readily available measures of cost-efficiency; our aim here is to examine the usefulness of some candidate robustness measures. A number of possible choices can be computed based on different principles including network topology, entropy and direct estimation of cumulative maximum capacity loss, and measures based on the latter principles are suggested here. To judge their usefulness we introduce the required-capacity survival function and compute this function on representations of four electrical grids, together with a set of scalar robustness measures, conditional on publicly available information. We then evaluate the degree to which the scalar measures provide adequate summary indicators of the more comprehensive capacity-loss information revealed in the survival functions. The measures produce substantially different results, and we find in particular that topological measures correspond only weakly with cumulative capacity loss from destructive events.

Keywords: Entropy; Robustness; Topological measures; Vulnerability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1874548219301234
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ijocip:v:27:y:2019:i:c:s1874548219301234

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijcip.2019.100326

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection is currently edited by Leon Strous

More articles in International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().