Critical Infrastructures: Reliability, Resilience and Wastage

William Hurst,Tonderayi Mangara,Kwabena Ebo Bennin,Ben Kotze

doi:10.3390/infrastructures7030037

William Hurst, Tonderayi Mangara + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures7030037

Copy DOI

Abstract

By 2050, according to the UN medium forecast, 68.6% of the world’s population will live in cities. This growth will place a strain on critical infrastructure distribution networks, which already operate in a state that is complex and intertwined within society. In order to create a sustainable society, there needs to be a change in both societal behaviours (for example, reducing water, energy or food waste activities) and future use of smart technologies. The main challenges are that there is a limited aggregated understanding of current waste behaviours within critical infrastructure ecosystems, and a lack of technological solutions to address this. Therefore, this article reflects on theoretical and applied works concerning waste behaviours, the reliability/availability and resilience of critical infrastructures, and the use of advanced technologies for reducing waste. Articles in the Scopus digital library are considered in the investigation, with 51 papers selected by means of a systematic literature review, from which 38 strains, 86 barriers and 87 needs are identified, along with 60 methods of analysis. The focus of the work is primarily on behaviours, barriers and needs that create an excess or wastage.

Highlights

The notion of the critical infrastructure is well-documented
Society relies on the critical infrastructure service provision, and their interconnectivity is immensely complex providing an ever-growing research trend within domains such as cyber [2], resilience [3,4], physical protection [5] and cascading failure modelling [6]. Alongside these mainstay research areas, as this article demonstrates, critical infrastructure strain is receiving growing attention. This is because over half of the human population is predicted to live in an urban environment in the near future [7,8], exacting considerable demand on existing critical infrastructure distribution channels and their interdependence that could result in severe shortcomings during periods of high demand
A further example is discussed by Mlambo [11], who documented a crisis looming over South Africa for future water distribution networks, where the water deficiencies are multifaceted, with climate change, water theft and a lack of infrastructure investment to match the urbanisation growth as two core contributors [12,13]

Summary

Introduction

Society relies on the critical infrastructure service provision, and their interconnectivity is immensely complex providing an ever-growing research trend within domains such as cyber [2], resilience [3,4], physical protection [5] and cascading failure modelling [6]. Alongside these mainstay research areas, as this article demonstrates, critical infrastructure strain is receiving growing attention. This is because over half of the human population is predicted to live in an urban environment in the near future [7,8], exacting considerable demand on existing critical infrastructure distribution channels and their interdependence that could result in severe shortcomings during periods of high demand.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion