Theoretical backgound for the identification and study of cascading crises and disasters

1. David Alexander
University College London
Cascading Disasters:
Lessons from the Past, Recent
Developments, Future Prospects

2. Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction
Prof. David Alexander
Professor of Risk
and Disaster Reduction
Dr Gianluca Pescaroli
Lecturer in Business Continuity
and Organisational Resilience
Dr Robert Wicks
Associate Prof. of Space Weather Risk
IRDR / Dept of Space and Climate Physics
UCL-IRDR Cascading Disasters Research Group

3. www.ucl.ac.uk/risk-disaster-reduction/research/
cascading-disasters-research-group

4. A broad
theoretical
basis

5. The wider agenda:-
• what is the role of
root causes in disasters?
• what is the balance between
root causes and immediate causes?
• how do cascades function?
• what and where are
the escalation points?
• how do we deal with
all of this in order
to make life safer?

6. 'PRESSURE-AND-RELEASE' MODEL
PROGRESSION OF VULNERABILITY
ROOT
CAUSES
DYNAMIC
PRESSURES
UNSAFE
CONDITIONS
HAZARDSDISASTER
Theoretical and conceptual framework for analysis
Wisner, Cannon, Blaikie and Davis 2004, At Risk.

7. 'PRESSURE-AND-RELEASE' MODEL
PROGRESSION OF VULNERABILITY
ROOT
CAUSES
DYNAMIC
PRESSURES
UNSAFE
CONDITIONS
HAZARDSDISASTER
Theoretical and conceptual framework for analysis
Wisner, Cannon, Blaikie and Davis 2004, At Risk.

8. The "egg hypothesis" Disaster
• prima facie causes
• root causes
• vulnerabilities
• dynamic pressures
Context
• general
vulnerability
• poverty
• deprivation
• marginalisation

9. The "egg hypothesis" Disaster
• prima facie causes
• root causes
• vulnerabilities
• dynamic pressures
Context
• general
vulnerability
• poverty
• deprivation
• marginalisation
Disaster
Marginalisation,
impoverishment

10. Root
causes
Vulnerability Hazard
Risk Impact
context
Cascades

11. Risk
amplification
factors
Risk
mitigation
factors
Total
vulnerability
Risk perception
factors- + positivenegative
DIALECTIC

12. HAZARD or
THREAT
SPECIFIC
VULNERABILITY
HUMAN
CONSEQUENCES
The 'hazardscape' or
the 'risk landscape'
WEAKENING of the
SOCIAL FABRIC
GENERAL
VULNERABILITY
HUMAN
CONSEQUENCES
The 'wreckage
economy'
Health
Employment
Services
• reduced
• rationed
• overpriced

13. `
• current knowledge about the concepts
of vulnerability, threat and risk
• current knowledge about
the concept of resilience
• human organisation in crisis situations
• gap analysis and resilience matrix
• interactions between resilience
and vulnerability: theoretical model.
Balancing vulnerability
and resilience

14. Direct causes:
practical problems
contributing to disaster
Long-term causes
(dynamic pressures):
predisposition for disaster
Root causes:
motivating and
underlying factors
Local
cascading
effects
National
cascading
effects
International
cascading
effects
Escalation
factors
Context

15. What are
cascading
disasters?

16. Cascading disasters
[crises, emergencies]
are negative events that involve:-
• a primary impact (the trigger)
• chains & networks of consequences
• secondary impacts
• complex interacting vulnerabilities
• escalation points
• (usually) complex impacts
upon critical infrastructure.

17. Intangible effects
heritage
e.g. museum ->
artefacts ->
restorers
Cascading
escalation of
secondary
events
Triggering
event
National response
capacity
overwhelmed
Disruption of
critical
infrastructure
Direct effects:
functional nodes
e.g. power plant failure -
> lack of energy supply -
> lack of water
Indirect effects:
autonomous hazards
e.g. nuclear plant-
>contamination->CBRN
training and dosimetersRequest/offer
international
relief
Source: Pescaroli & Kelman 2016, JCCM

18. C
E
E
E
E
C
E/C
E
E
E
E
E
E
E
E
E/C
(a) (b)
C - cause
E - effect
E/C- escalation
points
Source: Pescaroli & Alexander (2015)

19. Water
treatment works Railway station
Fire station
Electricity sub-station
Broadband antenna
Hospital
Supermarket
Power station
Waste water
treatment works
FLOOD SITUATION

20. Cascading disasters
• topping dominoes, knock-on effects
• linking physical and social vulnerabilities
• compound and interconnected risks
• non-linear progress and amplification of risks
• multiple-scale and secondary risks.

21. Triple disaster
in Japan
March 2011

22. Eyjafjallajökull - April 2010

23. Rigopiano, 18 Jan. 2017
Central Italy, January 2017: Connected Events
Campo Felice, 24 Jan. 2017

24. TimeLongShort/Fast
Scenario trigger N1 (e.g. Cyber attack)
Scenario trigger N2 (e.g. Extreme space
weather).
Scenario trigger N3 (e.g.Pandemics).
Scenario trigger N4 (e.g. Flooding).
Scenario trigger Nx (Other scenarios)
Possible path
Realised path
Secondary emergency
Escalating crisis
Primary impact

25. Primary
cause of
disaster
Impact on
critical
infrastructure
Impact on
housing
Impact on
productive
capacity
Direct
impacts
Indirect
impacts
Impact on
activities
Secondary
impacts
Impact on
livelihoods
Impact on
revenue
Secondary
cause of
disaster
Impact on
well-being
Impact on
safety
Impact on
recovery

26. Source: Pescaroli and Alexander, 2016
Time
Short/fastLong/slow
SpaceRestricted Extensive
CAS & critical
infrastructure
Macro-level socio-
technical systems, e.g.
globalisation
Local & regional socio-
technical systems, e.g.
policies
Environmental
triggers (if any)
Impact and
feedback
Vulnerability
loops

27. Cascading disasters magnitude scale (Alexander 2018)
Cascading disasters involve escalation points which
result from the interaction of different vulnerabilities.

28. Level 0 - Simple incident or major incident.
No significant cascades or escalation points.
Level 1 - Major incident of limited complexity.
Simple, short cascades as secondary effects of the starting impact.
Level 2 - Major incident or small disaster, some complex consequences.
Limited cascade chains propagate to tertiary levels.
Level 3 - Disaster, with complex consequences.
Significant cascade chains with at least one escalation point.
Level 4 - Disaster, with substantially complex consequences.
Easily identifiable cascades with escalation points.
Level 5 - Catastrophe, with overwhelmingly complex consequences.
Major initial impact sets off long causal chains of cascading
consequences, some of which through escalation points
generate secondary causal chains.
Magnitude classification of cascading incidents, crises and disasters

29. Interacting
Risk
Interconnected
Risk
Compound
Risk
Cascading
Risk
Environmental
drivers
Simultaneous or
successive
extreme events
Global
interdependency of
human, natural and
technological systems
Disruption of critical infra-
structure and tightly coupled
organisational systems
Multiple risk
assessment
Globalisation,
Systems theory
Causality
chains
Background conditions
amplify events
(underling risk drivers)
Climate change,
Physical and statistical
components
Environmental
drivers
Tightly coupled
organisational
systems
Disruption
of critical
infrastructure
Source:Pescaroli and
Alexander, 2019

30. Critical
infrastructure

31. Critical infrastructure: "those infrastructure
assets (physical or electronic) that are vital
to the continued delivery and integrity of
the essential services upon which society
relies, the loss or compromission of
which would lead to severe economic or
social consequences or to loss of life."

32. CRITICAL
INFRA-
STRUCTURE
(CI)
CYBER
SPACE
PHYSICAL
SPACE
SOCIAL
COMPONENT
TECHNO-
LOGICAL
COMPONENT

33. Criticality scale
Impact
on life
Economic
impact
Impact on
essential
services
Impactcategories 5
4
3
2
1
Critical threshold
Critical national
infrastructure
Other national
infrastructure

34. Cost of risk reduction
Risk
Inefficient
measures
Disproportionate
measures
Insufficient
measures
Optimal
measures
Critical infrastructure

35. Coronal mass ejections
"space weather"
• damage to electricity
transformers
• damage to
communications satellites
• damage to global
navigation systems
• increased radiation dose
• communications
interruptions

36. 1859 - the "Carrington Event"
660 BC - a CME ten times larger...

37. BLACK-SKY THINKING
Venezuela 2019

38. 2003 grid
failure
Superstorm Sandy
October 2012

39. Knock-on effects of electricity failure
• water: no pumping, no wastewater discharge or treatment
• energy: heat and air conditioning down, gas unusable
• food: no refrigeration; quick contamination
• health: reliance on hospital generators
• transport: no traffic control, no fuel pumping
• communications: no mass-communications at all
• finance: no money supply
• government: cannot communicate with the people
• emergency services: hampered and over-stretched.

40. Basic
human
needs
Maslow's updated pyramid

41. Basic problem: how to communicate
when there is no electricity?

42. Hogan, M. 2013.
Anytown Report.
London Resilience
Telecoms
Electricity
Water
Acute healthcare
Primary &
community
healthcare
Wider
community
impact
Local
authorities
& businesses
environment sector
Climate &
Transport sector
Emergency
services
sector

43. Generators in critical facilities
(e.g. hospitals)
• low or uncertain fuel autonomy & resupply
• not designed to function for long periods
• seldom tested
• high rate of failure.

44. Wide-area prolonged power supply interruption
• technical failure with 'domino effect'
• excess of demand over supply
• successful cyber attack
• direct terrorist attack (sabotage)
• space weather damages transformers
• ice storm, wind storm, etc.
• other causes

45. Management, mitigation
and resilience strategies

46. There is now a demand for
knowledge about cascading
impacts and their effects
• decision support systems
• theoretical models
• exploration of scenarios
• training sessions
• information dissemination
• brainstorming sessions.

47. How to deal with cascading disasters and crises
• do not focus only on the trigger event
• consider the strategic and tactical levels
• use a broader impact analysis with 'impact trees'
• create reasonable worst-case scenarios
• identify escalation points and subject them to 'stress tests'.

48. Cyber
Human
Physical
Set goals and objectives
Identify assets, systems and networks
Assess risks: vulnerabilities,
threats, consequences
Prioritise
Implement programmes
Measure effectiveness
Continuous
improvement
to enhance
protection
of critical
infrastructure
and key
resources
Feedback loop

49. Safeguarding critical infrastructure
• redundant systems
• adequate levels of operating supplies
• fault-tolerant design
• "fail-safe" design
• adequate and reserve manpower
• scenarios for failures and disasters
• contingency and emergency plans kept current
• involvement of top management.

50. evolution
development
of the
scenarioevolution
time
zero
formal evaluation of the
outcome of the scenario
consequences
at time n
Scenario
methodology
in emergency
planning
consequences
at time 2
consequences
at time 1
reference
event
initial
conditions
evaluation of
the progress
of the scenario
historical
analysis
hypothetical
ingredients

51. Conclusions

52. DISASTER
POLITICS
ECONOMICS
SOCIAL CONDITIONS
PHYSICAL IMPACT
Politics in
the service
of economics
VULNERABILITY
knowledge is ideology
Complexity
Ideology
• extremism
• separatism
• isolationism
• exclusion
Conflict
Climate change
Demographic change
• human mobility
Culture
Underlying risk drivers

53. LOSS OF
HUMAN RIGHTS
PROXY WAR,
CONFLICT &
POLARISATION
POVERTY &
MARGINALISATION
'WRECKAGE ECONOMY' &
RISE OF THE PRECARIAT
LACK OF
DISASTER
GOVERNANCE
NIHILISM
CORRUPTION &
LOSS OF TRUSTANOMIE
constraints upon life and safety
Anomie (Durkheim) is a condition
of instability resulting from
a breakdown of standards
and values or from
a lack of purpose
or ideals.

54. Anomie means loss of basic morality.
There is a disaster because fairness
gives way to self-promotion and
blatant exploitation.
“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche!”
Disaster is about the use and abuse of power:
we have to factor that into the equation.

55. Conclusions
• society is complex: all disasters of
a certain size will involve cascades
• more investigation of operational
components is needed
• we need operational guidelines on
cascading effects of power failures
• we need to understand how people
behave in cascading crises
• inter-institutional dialogue
needs to be increased
• we need to investigate
more case studies.

56. International Journal of
Disaster Risk Reduction
Special Issue (2018):
Understanding and
mitigating cascading
crises in the global
interconnected system

58. Thank you for listening!
emergency-planning.blogspot.com
www.slideshare.net/dealexander
www.ucl.ac.uk/rdr/cascading
David.Alexander@ucl.ac.uk