Managing Critical Infrastructure Risks

The increasing complexity of societal change in response to the new global economy requires an enhanced capacity for scientific assessment and monitoring, particularly of critical infrastructure such as ports and harbors. Public pressure for decision transparency in government and corporations drives the need for a new framework for thinking about globalization and the prioritization of social and corporate values that reaches beyond the realms of economics, world trade, and corporate management to include environmental protection and social goals. Establishing, maintaining, and enhancing a sense of security and vulnerability in areas around critical infrastructure will require:§1. Matching human demands with available resources.2. Recognizing threats, including environmental security threats and infrastructure vulnerabilities.3. Identifying the range of available options for preventing and minimizing natural disasters, technological failures, and terror actions. §This book emphasizes beliefs that the convergence of seemingly disparate viewpoints and often uncertain and limited information is possible only by using one or more available risk assessment methodologies and decision-making tools such as risk assessment and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA).