The Process of Risk Analysis on the Critical Infrastructure

The process of risk analysis on the critical infrastructure that handles hazardous materials and toxic chemicals encompasses among other things, the development of an integrated approach across the broader community to identify, deter, detect, and prepare for the hazards to the critical infrastructure. Risk analysis may also require other considerations like analyzing how the government and private sector resources are applied in offering the most benefits for mitigating the risks by lessening the levels of vulnerabilities and minimizing the consequences of all hazards to the critical infrastructure. The other essential consideration for risk analysis is essential collection of infrastructure protection and resilience information that has the potential relevance for the Emergency Services (ESS) departments and agencies. This implies that the process of risk analysis involves the thorough scrutiny of the system of preparedness, response, and recovery elements that are part of the nation’s first line of defense for risk prevention and mitigation from the disasters that the toxic and hazardous materials may cause. 

Developing a specific community disaster resilience plan gives the requirement that there should be a system of understanding of the infrastructure dependencies and the potential cascading impacts that may occur. Dependencies including the external and internal are essential in the course of identification of the cascading failures, reducing the impacts and consequences as well as setting the performance goals that balance the role of the dependent system in the communal recovery following a disaster. Dependency involves the development of interactions within and between the infrastructure systems, where it shows the functional relationships between different systems. Having infrastructure dependency will impact positively the process of response and recovery as it will enhance a plausible system of interaction between key actors in response to the disaster. Infrastructure dependency will also influence the levels of governance and resilience in possible disasters.