Resilience of Social-Infrastructural Systems: Functional Interdependencies Analysis

Abstract

Critical infrastructures serve human activities and play an essential role in societies. Infrastructural systems are not isolated but are interdependent with regard to social systems, including those of public health and economic and sustainable development. In recent years, both social and infrastructural systems have frequently been in dysfunction due to increasing natural or human-made disasters and due to the internal and external dependencies between system components. The interconnectedness between social-infrastructural systems (socio-economic systems and technical-infrastructural systems), implies that the damage to one single system can extend beyond its scope. For that reason, cascading dysfunction can occur and increase system vulnerability. This article aims to study the functional interdependencies between social-infrastructural systems and to propose a methodology to analyse and improve the resilience of these systems. Combining Actor Network Theory and the Functional Models approach, the social-infrastructural Interdependence Resilience (SIIR) framework was proposed. To assess the applicability of the approach, the framework was applied to study the interdependence of a social-infrastructural system in the Nantes Metropolis. The studied system was composed of the local Highway Infrastructure (an infrastructural system) and the Emergency Medical Service (a social system). The results (1) show the feasibility of SIIR for investigating the interdependencies of two urban systems, and (2) provide a guideline for decision-makers to improve the functional interdependencies of urban systems.