Strategic management of infrastructures subjected to multiple threats through economic input-output methods

Recent tragedies such as Sichuan Earthquake have revealed a need for methods to evaluate and plan for the impact of extreme events on critical infrastructure. Management of our critical infrastructures is a vital component of our economic and social life. Faced with catastrophic economic and human losses accumulating in each passing decade, development policy makers are demanding credible and complete data on disasters. The high degree of dependency and interdependency that exists between sectors of infrastructure requires that the whole system be considered when assessing the impacts of such events or evaluating methods of intervention. Modeling systems can potentially provide a number of benefits in the process of risk assessment and evaluation of risk mitigation methods. This paper frames the various threats to sustainable infrastructure and summarizes the state of the art for measuring sustainable performance with indicators, to which these infrastructures are interdependent, due to increasing system complexity and technology, further complicates the task of infrastructure managers to maintain service. Critical connections between infrastructure systems, whether direct or indirect, pose a risk of one disruption causing a ripple effect across the economy. This paper summarizes the methods of extreme risk analysis of financial modeling framework basing on economic Input-Output method. Beyond the extensive discussion on assessing the risk of disaster to the interdependent infrastructures and economic sectors, the management of such risks is also discussed extensively in this paper.