IRGC projects - Critical Infrastructures
Critical infrastructures are the systems and facilities by which essential services are supplied. These services include food, water, public health services, energy, transport, information and communication, and waste removal and disposal.
Critical infrastructures have always been dependent on each other. However, recent decades have witnessed a much greater and tighter integration and interdependence between them – effectively the creation of a ’system of systems’ which has no single owner or operator. While this has often yielded improved service and convenience and promoted greater efficiency, it has also led to increased social vulnerabilities in the face of accidental or intentional disruption.
Maritime global critical infrastructure
Following IRGC’s first project focusing on critical infrastructures, IRGC is working in collaboration with our project partner – the Disaster Prevention Research Institute at Kyoto University, Japan – on a project addressing the risk governance of the maritime global critical infrastructure. The project has a specific focus on the Strait of Malacca and the Port of Singapore. In this project, IRGC addresses the issue of risk governance relating to potential break-points in the global critical infrastructure of global shipping and trade. This system inherently encompasses a great variety of stakeholders, resulting in a high level of systemic complexity and uncertainty.