Labaka et al. Three units of analysis for CM and CIP Three Units of Analysis for Crisis Management and Critical Infrastructure Protection Leire Labaka University of Navarra llabaka@tecnun.es Josune Hernantes University of Navarra jhernantes@tecnun.es Ana Laugé University of Navarra alauge@tecnun.es Jose María Sarriegi University of Navarra jmsarriegi@tecnun.es ABSTRACT Society’s welfare is very dependent on the effective performance of Critical Infrastructure (CI). Nowadays, CI constitutes a network of interconnected and interdependent entities. This means that a serious event in one CI can originate cascading events in the rest, leading to a serious crisis. As a consequence, Crisis Management (CM) and Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) should converge and integrate their findings, providing a more unified approach. One relevant issue when developing integrated CM/CIP research is what type of unit of analysis should be used, as it conditions the research objectives and questions. This paper presents an analysis of three different units of analysis used in CM research, focusing on the research objectives and questions used in them. These three different units of analysis have been used in a European CIP research project where three simulation models have been developed based on these three units of analysis. Keywords Crisis management, critical infrastructure protection, modeling and simulation, crisis peak, crisis lifecycle, multicrises scenario, system dynamics. INTRODUCTION The welfare of society has exponentially grown in recent decades in almost every country throughout the world. Advances in health, education, energy, communication, etc. have supposed significant benefits for our quality of life. But, at the same time, this has also increased our dependency on the infrastructures that support these services which have become critical for us. Consequently, the concept of Critical Infrastructure (CI) has been created to define assets which are essential for the functioning of our society. Although there is not a unique list of CI, some infrastructures such as Power or Health are unanimously accepted as critical. Nobody could imagine our world without power or hospitals. One characteristic of current CI is their interconnectivity. This means that a problem which takes place in one particular CI can expand through the CI’s network, causing cascading effects in other CI. This is quite easy to imagine. For instance, a serious problem in the power supply would have consequences in many other CI, as some of them can only have autonomous power generation capacity for a limited time slot. Analogously, a pandemic which initially would only impact the health sector could also expand its consequences to any other sector, when the availability of skilled operators reaches a critical point. According to Rinaldi (2004) there are four different types of CI interdependencies: 1. Physical: If the state of each CI depends upon the material output(s) of other CI. 2. Cyber: If the state of a CI depends on information transmitted through the ICT infrastructure. 3. Geographic: If local environmental changes affect the CIs in that region, e.g., when the flooding of a reservoir knocks out a generator, this implies close spatial proximity. Reviewing Statement: This full paper has been fully double-blind peer reviewed for clarity, relevance, significance, validity and originality. Proceedings of the 8 th International ISCRAM Conference – Lisbon, Portugal, May 2011 1