Towards Conceptualizing and Modelling Critical Flows - A Three-Tier Modelling Framework with a Swedish Example

Summary, in English

Continuous access to flows of goods and services, such as energy, transport, information, and food, is essential and the basis for functioning modern societies. Hence, they are critical and need to be secured. Mega-trends such as climate change, changing geopolitical environment, hybrid- and cyber threats, and rapid technological advances come with new challenges and emerging threats to securing flows. Further, the interconnectedness of infrastructures, and globalization and leanness of supply chains, add complexity and infer increased vulnerabilities and risks to our critical flows. Given the complexities involved in securing critical flows, the focus should not only be on protection but also on resilience. Critical flows are of heterogeneous nature. They can take vastly different forms, consist of various entities, such as people, goods, energy, or data; span different geographical scales, from local to global; require an array of different physical infrastructures and supply chains. Comprehensive overview and understanding of the interdependent structure and connectivity of critical flows are largely lacking, in turn presenting difficulty in establishing a common flow concept and enabling holistic modelling and simulation approaches. In this paper, we outline a conceptual foundation and an initial modelling and simulation approach to, on an aggregated level, grasp the nature and behavior of an array of flows and their interdependencies. In this paper, the main contributions are 1) a conceptualization of critical flows applicable for analysis of a wide variety of vital societal flows by focusing on salient properties, 2) outlining of a generic model for simulation and analysis of interconnected flows, and 3) an illustration of the approach in a Swedish setting concerning flows of food, transportation, and energy, by analyzing their interdependent behavior and vulnerabilities. The proposed approach contributes toward holistically understanding and analyzing critical flows; however, many research gaps still exist.

• Författare: Josefin Lindström; Jonas Johansson
• Avdelning/ar: Avdelningen för Riskhantering och Samhällssäkerhet; LTH profilområde: Energiomställningen
• Publiceringsår: 2022
• Språk: Engelska
• Dokumenttyp: Konferensbidrag
• Ämne: Mechanical Engineering
• Nyckelord: safety engineering; climate change
• Conference name: 16th International Conference on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management, PSAM 2022
• Conference date: 2022-06-26 - 2022-07-01
• Conference place: Honolulu, United States
• Status: Published