18 Bridging the Vulnerability Paradigm to Critical Infrastructure …
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social and organizational dimensions of these complex systems. Whereas methods to
apply this holistic concept are rarely seen in CI literature, NIPP (DHS 2013) proposes
guidelines and platforms of collaboration between owners and operators of CI and
government agencies. Public–private partnerships and mutual aid assistantships are
some examples. While for the government, the value of this collaboration is essential for understanding risk and preserve public safety, for the industry, the interest
of such propositions is not always clear, especially in the context of highly competitive markets. One of the major challenges in these partnerships is the difficulty of
private utility companies to fully integrate into systems such as mutual aid, as this
requires levels of transparence and information sharing that is incompatible with
efficiency business models and antitrust policies. Specifically, in the U.S. regulations such as the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 ensure that CI owners and operators can voluntarily share information with the government while exempting CIs from the Freedom
of Information Act (Murray and Grubesic 2012).
DeBruijne and Van Eeten (2007) address the draw backs of institutional fragmentation for resilience goals that are promoted in governmental guidelines such as the
NIPP framework. The institutionally fragmented set of organizations that own and
operate these systems do not share centralized and hierarchical control of goods and
services. These are provided by a large population of competing markets. Any CI that
relies on a supply chain fits this category. DeBrujine and Van Eeten’s (2007) findings indicate that this institutional fragmentation threatens high levels of reliability,
but, on the other hand, it can help generate new strategies of supply and demand
that enables these organizations to maintain reliability under unusually demanding
conditions. This ability to “live at the edge” which has been attributed to flexibilities in organizational process and resource allocation, challenges the premise that
complex interdependencies are solely source of vulnerability.
Although the organizational and corporative level of CI has been a subject of
study in business behavioral sciences (Bond and Harrigan 2014), topological models
to assess organizational (operational and ownership) structures of CI are rarely seen
in literature. Recent research on wildfire risk in Arizona proposes new metrics to
fine-tune risk governance through network models of wildfire transmission (Ager
et al. 2018; Hamilton and Lubell 2018). In Ager et al. (2018), nodes are represented
by different types of land tenure and the links are represented by wildfire transmission rates (total fire transmitted in ha/yr. between public lands and state lands). This
method is designed to deal with wildfire risk areas that are fragmented by jurisdiction, ownerships, and fire regimes. The wildfire networks identify where collaborative communities among public and private landowners and institutions are most
needed to facilitate transboundary risk management. High transmission nodes (high
degree centrality) are singled out as priority communities for allocating resources in
designing fuel breaks, vegetation treatment, and prescribed fires. This is one example
of how topological models of organizational and ownership can produce innovative
ways to achieve mitigative policies considering conflicts and opportunities intrinsic
to different types of private and public organizations. Similar methods have also
been documented for improving natural resources governance with a focus on water
347
social and organizational dimensions of these complex systems. Whereas methods to
apply this holistic concept are rarely seen in CI literature, NIPP (DHS 2013) proposes
guidelines and platforms of collaboration between owners and operators of CI and
government agencies. Public–private partnerships and mutual aid assistantships are
some examples. While for the government, the value of this collaboration is essential for understanding risk and preserve public safety, for the industry, the interest
of such propositions is not always clear, especially in the context of highly competitive markets. One of the major challenges in these partnerships is the difficulty of
private utility companies to fully integrate into systems such as mutual aid, as this
requires levels of transparence and information sharing that is incompatible with
efficiency business models and antitrust policies. Specifically, in the U.S. regulations such as the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 ensure that CI owners and operators can voluntarily share information with the government while exempting CIs from the Freedom
of Information Act (Murray and Grubesic 2012).
DeBruijne and Van Eeten (2007) address the draw backs of institutional fragmentation for resilience goals that are promoted in governmental guidelines such as the
NIPP framework. The institutionally fragmented set of organizations that own and
operate these systems do not share centralized and hierarchical control of goods and
services. These are provided by a large population of competing markets. Any CI that
relies on a supply chain fits this category. DeBrujine and Van Eeten’s (2007) findings indicate that this institutional fragmentation threatens high levels of reliability,
but, on the other hand, it can help generate new strategies of supply and demand
that enables these organizations to maintain reliability under unusually demanding
conditions. This ability to “live at the edge” which has been attributed to flexibilities in organizational process and resource allocation, challenges the premise that
complex interdependencies are solely source of vulnerability.
Although the organizational and corporative level of CI has been a subject of
study in business behavioral sciences (Bond and Harrigan 2014), topological models
to assess organizational (operational and ownership) structures of CI are rarely seen
in literature. Recent research on wildfire risk in Arizona proposes new metrics to
fine-tune risk governance through network models of wildfire transmission (Ager
et al. 2018; Hamilton and Lubell 2018). In Ager et al. (2018), nodes are represented
by different types of land tenure and the links are represented by wildfire transmission rates (total fire transmitted in ha/yr. between public lands and state lands). This
method is designed to deal with wildfire risk areas that are fragmented by jurisdiction, ownerships, and fire regimes. The wildfire networks identify where collaborative communities among public and private landowners and institutions are most
needed to facilitate transboundary risk management. High transmission nodes (high
degree centrality) are singled out as priority communities for allocating resources in
designing fuel breaks, vegetation treatment, and prescribed fires. This is one example
of how topological models of organizational and ownership can produce innovative
ways to achieve mitigative policies considering conflicts and opportunities intrinsic
to different types of private and public organizations. Similar methods have also
been documented for improving natural resources governance with a focus on water