Port vulnerability assessment from the perspective of critical infrastructure interdependency

Abstract

The increasing damages and losses bring requests to improve coping capacities for extreme conditions on the identification of and improvement to socioeconomic vulnerabilities. Disruptions to critical infrastructure (CI) influence the capacities for resilience and sustainable daily operations both directly and by causing failures in one system that in turn affects other systems. Among the transportation systems widely identified as national CI that should be protected, ports provide substantial employment, industrial activity, along with national and regional development. This study thus examines the vulnerability of port failures from an interdependency perspective. Fourteen vulnerable factors are developed by literatures as well as in-depth interviews. Four international commercial ports in Taiwan are employed as empirical cases to evaluate port vulnerability through semi-quantitatively systematic methods, including fuzzy cognitive maps and sensitivity model, while geographic information systems are used to clarify the spatial-functional interdependency. In addition to the underestimated vulnerability because of omitted interdependency, analytical results reveal that capacity and efficiency significantly affect port vulnerability. Increasing local cargo bases and co-opetition are suggested to improve the port vulnerability. The proposed assessment framework helps decision-makers understand the interdependent vulnerabilities and adopt appropriate strategies for the mitigation of losses.

Multi-level port resilience planning in the UK: How can information sharing be made easier?

“…First, port stakeholders and their assets rely on each other for resources that include port services, the supply of people and cargo, and information. A crisis that makes some resource unavailable may in turn remove other resources from the port system (Hsieh et al, 2014). Second, the interdependency and interlinking of port stakeholders suggests the possibility of mutual assistance and help with alternative resources (Akakura et al, 2015).…”

“…Recent research on port resilience includes the roles of different port stakeholders in resilience planning (Becker and Caldwell, 2015); managing supply chain disruption using structural equation modelling (Loh and Thai, 2015); resiliency metrics for maritime transportation systems (Omer et al, 2012); the vulnerability of port to failures using the perspectives of interdependency and co-opetition (Hsieh et al, 2014); risk-based strategic decision-making for investments (Mansouri et al, 2010); business continuity planning which identifies alternative ports (Akakura et al, 2015); port capacity bottlenecks (Trepte and Rice, 2014) and simulating port network capacity in disaster response scenarios (Paul and Maloni, 2010). A significant characteristic of ports that all these papers include in their investigations is the notion of a port's capabilities to transfer people and cargoes between land and sea transportation.…”

Seaport Climate Vulnerability Assessment at the Multi-port Scale: A Review of Approaches

“…Another example of CCVA that extends beyond the single-port scale is the 2013 work by Hsieh et al that examines the vulnerability of port failures from an interdependency perspective using four commercial ports in Taiwan as empirical case studies (Hsieh, Tai, and Lee 2013). The method determines factors vulnerable to disasters by reviewing literature and conducting an in-depth interview process with port experts; in this way, the researchers developed 14 'vulnerable factors' that can be considered similar to our described indicators (Berle, Asbjørnslett, and Rice 2011).…”

Vulnerability assessment of ports and industrial clusters against catastrophes

“…Previous literatures focused more on the assessment of the physical dimension of port vulnerability (Nozu et al, 2004;Yang et al, 2012;Kakderi and Pitilakis, 2014;Chhetri et al, 2015), while insufficient prior studies addressed other dimensions (Earnest et al, 2012;Nursey-Bray et al, 2013;Hsieh, 2014;Hsieh et al, 2014).…”

“…However, most of the assessments focus on a scale of community, city, region, and even the whole world. Very few focus specifically on ports and maritime transportation network (Hsieh, 2014;Hsieh et al, 2014;Chhetri et al, 2015). Even fewer focused on port vulnerability assessment against catastrophes (Hsieh, 2014).…”