Critical Infrastructure Resilience: A Framework for Considering Micro and Macro Observation Levels

The resilience mechanisms of Critical Infrastructures (CIs) are often hard to understand due to system complexity. With rising research interest, models are developed to reduce this complexity. However, these models imply reductions and limitations. According to the level of observation, models either focus on effects in a CI system or on effects in a single CI. In cases of limited resources, such limitations exclude some considerations of crisis interventions, which could be identified in combining both observation levels. To overcome these restrictions, we propose a two-step framework which enables to analyze the vulnerability of a CI and as well in comparison to other CIs. This enhances the understanding of temporal crisis impacts on the overall performance of the supply, and the crisis preparations in each CI can be assessed. The framework is applied to the demonstrating example of the functionalities of hospitals that are potentially suffering from a power outage.