Assessing The Risk Posed by Natural Hazards To Infrastructures

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.
, 17, 481–504, 2017

www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/
doi:10.5194/nhess-17-481-2017
© Author(s) 2017. CC Attribution 3.0 License.
Assessing the risk posed by natural hazards to infrastructures

Unni Marie K. Eidsvig, Krister Kristensen, and Bjørn Vidar Vangelsten
NGI, Natural hazards division, Oslo, Norway
Correspondence to: Unni Marie K. Eidsvig ([email protected])
Received: 18 March 2016 – Discussion started: 11 April 2016

Revised: 31 January 2017 – Accepted: 24 February 2017 – Published: 24 March 2017
Abstract. This paper proposes a model for assessing the risk Case studies for two Norwegian municipalities are pre-
posed by natural hazards to infrastructures, with a focus on sented for demonstration purposes, where risk posed by ad-
the indirect losses and loss of stability for the population rely- verse weather and natural hazards to primary road, water sup-
ing on the infrastructure. The model prescribes a three-level ply and power networks is assessed. The application exam-
analysis with increasing level of detail, moving from qualita- ples show that the proposed model provides a useful tool for
tive to quantitative analysis. The focus is on a methodology screening of potential undesirable events, contributing to a
for semi-quantitative analyses to be performed at the second targeted reduction of the risk.
level. The purpose of this type of analysis is to perform a
screening of the scenarios of natural hazards threatening the
infrastructures, identifying the most critical scenarios and in-
vestigating the need for further analyses (third level). The 1 Introduction
proposed semi-quantitative methodology considers the fre-
quency of the natural hazard, different aspects of vulnerabil- Modern society is increasingly dependent on infrastructures
ity, including the physical vulnerability of the infrastructure to maintain critical societal functions such as supply of food,
itself, and the societal dependency on the infrastructure. An water and energy, and security. Disruptions in one of the in-
indicator-based approach is applied, ranking the indicators frastructure systems, such as water and energy supply, trans-
on a relative scale according to pre-defined ranking criteria. port or communication, may have severe consequences. With
The proposed indicators, which characterise conditions that a changing climate, the frequency and intensity of some
influence the probability of an infrastructure malfunctioning extreme weather events (e.g. intense precipitation) and re-
caused by a natural event, are defined as (1) robustness and lated hazards (e.g. landslides and floods) are expected to
buffer capacity, (2) level of protection, (3) quality/level of increase (Hanssen-Bauer et al., 2015), creating challenges
maintenance and renewal, (4) adaptability and quality of op- for the infrastructure providers. Challenges include, for ex-
erational procedures and (5) transparency/complexity/degree ample, landslides threatening transportation lines, increased
of coupling. Further indicators describe conditions influenc- contamination of water sources due to intense rain and flood-
ing the socio-economic consequences of the infrastructure ing or storms leading to loss of power supply.
malfunctioning, such as (1) redundancy and/or substitution, Since the financial and workforce resources available to
(2) cascading effects and dependencies, (3) preparedness operators to protect their infrastructure systems are limited,
and (4) early warning, emergency response and measures. it is especially important to use resources efficiently. To do
The aggregated risk estimate is a combination of the semi- so, it is essential to be aware of the threats and risks and to
quantitative vulnerability indicators, as well as quantitative assess and compare risk in order to set priorities. This will be
estimates of the frequency of the natural hazard, the potential the basis for implementing targeted protection measures, as
duration of the infrastructure malfunctioning (e.g. depending stated by the Federal Ministry of the Interior (2008).
on the required restoration effort) and the number of users of The main purpose of performing risk assessment related
the infrastructure. to infrastructure affected by natural events is to support well-
founded risk management. An extensive risk assessment is
indispensable in order to identify adverse events and vulner-
Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.

482 U. M. K. Eidsvig et al.: Assessing the risk posed by natural hazards to infrastructures
abilities and evaluate the impact on infrastructures and their Table 1. Safety of the population specified through socio-economic
users, taking into account the probability of the occurrence values and corresponding consequence types (DSB, 2014).
of these adverse events. The risk assessment gives decision
makers a better understanding of risks and its uncertainties, Safety of the population
describing and comparing the vulnerability and resilience Socio-economic value Consequence type
and potential risks related to the effects on infrastructures
from natural events. Careful assessment of risk and informed Life and health Fatalities,
analysis of dependencies between infrastructures can signifi- injuries and diseases
cantly contribute to effective investment in planning and de- Stability Lack of basic provisions and
sign and facilitate preparedness actions in the event of failure. disruptions in daily life
With regard to risk reduction, discussion about acceptable
Nature and environment Long-term damage to the natural
levels of risk and of potential mitigation measures to reduce environment
the risk is required. Cost–benefit analyses could be used to
assess the feasibility and adequacy of mitigation measures. Material assets Monetary losses
Optimal decisions require that decision makers are aware of
how their decisions may affect the expected loss.
By law, the Norwegian municipalities are required to carry Terminology
out a risk and vulnerability analysis and plan and prepare for
emergencies from a short- and long-term perspective. The The terminology used in this paper is according to the
purpose of the duty/legislation is to ensure that the munici- definitions listed below. The definitions are adapted from
palities are working holistically and systematically with so- DSB (2014), Birkmann et al. (2013), the National Academy
cietal safety and preparedness across sectors in the munici- of Sciences (2012), ISSMGE (2004) and Corominas et
pality. Knowledge about risk and vulnerability is important al. (2014).
to reduce the probability of undesirable events and to reduce – Adverse event: an event that may result in loss of life,
the consequences should the event occur (DSB, 2015a). The health or stability, monetary losses or damage to the en-
current format of the municipal risk and vulnerability assess- vironment, DSB (2014). In this paper the focus is on
ments is very similar to a preliminary hazard analysis (PHA; adverse events in terms of malfunctioning of infrastruc-
IEC/FDIS 31010, 2009), where the starting point is the iden- ture (caused by natural events).
tification of adverse events, followed by a simple probability
and consequence assessment of each event. In the municipal – Consequence: the outcomes or potential outcomes aris-
analysis, adverse events refer to events in the municipality ing from the occurrence of an adverse event, expressed
that may result in loss of life, health or stability, monetary qualitatively in terms of loss, disadvantage or gain; or
losses or damage to the environment. Through the municipal quantitatively in terms of damage, injury or loss of life,
involvement in the implementation of the risk and vulnera- adapted from Corominas et al. (2014). Vulnerability is
bility analysis, the stakeholders in the municipality obtain a an important component of the consequence. Conse-
better overview over, and an increased consciousness about, quences could be characterized as direct and indirect.
the relevant risks and vulnerabilities. In addition, the munici- Direct consequences refer to the physical destruction
pality can acquire knowledge about how risks and vulnerabil- of exposed elements, and indirect consequences refer
ities can be managed. The analysis is intended to form a basis to the consequences of that destruction, adapted from
for an overall emergency plan that must be coordinated with the Committee on Assessing the Costs of Natural Dis-
other relevant emergency and contingency plans. The ulti- asters (1999). In this paper the focus is on the indirect
mate goal of the analyses is to help maintain important socio- consequences/indirect losses.
economic functions and safeguard citizens’ lives, health and
basic needs under various forms of stress. This goal is further – Exposed elements: population, buildings and engineer-
specified by defining four societal values with corresponding ing works, infrastructure, environmental features and
consequence types as shown in Table 1. Vulnerability anal- economic activities in the area affected by the adverse
ysis of the infrastructures and their interdependencies is an event (ISSMGE, 2004).
essential part of the municipal risk and vulnerability analysis – Resilience: the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb,
for the societal value named stability, i.e. referring to conse- recover from or more-successfully adapt to actual or po-
quences such as lack of basic provisions and disruptions in tential adverse events (National Academy of Sciences,
daily life. 2012).
– Risk: measure of the probability and severity of
an adverse effect to life, health, property, eco-
nomic activities or the environment. Quantitatively,
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U. M. K. Eidsvig et al.: Assessing the risk posed by natural hazards to infrastructures 483
risk = hazard · potential worth of loss. This can be also Ouyang, 2014). Meyer et al. (2013) give a broad review of the
expressed as the “probability of an adverse event times assessment of costs of natural hazards affecting infrastruc-
the consequences if the event occurs” (ISSMGE, 2004). ture (considering both direct and indirect costs). There are
several ways to classify levels and scopes for assessment of
– Vulnerability: vulnerability refers to the propensity of infrastructure. Bouchon (2006) divides this into three levels:
exposed elements such as physical or capital assets, as (i) the level of the infrastructure itself (which could further be
well as human beings and their livelihoods, to experi- subdivided into component level and network level), (ii) the
ence harm and suffer damage and loss when impacted level of the interdependent infrastructures and (iii) the level
by single or compound hazard events (Birkmann et al., of dependent territorial, socio-economic, politically depen-
2013). dent sub-systems. Similarly, Giannopoulos et al. (2012) dis-
Dimensions of vulnerability, adapted from Birkmann et tinguish between sectorial level, when each sector is treated
al. (2013), are as follows. separately and system approaches that assess the infrastruc-
tures as an interconnected network and use a system of
– Physical dimension refers to conditions of physical as- systems topology. Yusta et al. (2011) refer to two differ-
sets – including built-up areas, infrastructure and open ent scopes of modelling infrastructure vulnerability and risk,
spaces that can be affected by natural hazards. namely methods and tools to describe the current state of the
infrastructure and methodologies and tools that focus on the
– Social dimension refers to human welfare, including so- understanding of the dynamic behaviour of the infrastructure
cial integration, mental and physical health, both at an systems, which is based on simulation techniques. The first
individual and collective level. scope focuses on the study, analysis and understanding of the
– Economic dimension refers to the productive capacity, infrastructure from the earliest stages of construction and as-
unemployment and low-income conditions. sembly. This scope identifies methods, techniques, tools and
charts to describe the current state of the infrastructure, and
– Physical vulnerability indicators refer to properties or it uses methods of evaluating the threat to obtain a clearer
characteristics of the infrastructure affecting the proba- view on the operation of infrastructure. For this, it takes into
bility of malfunctioning (here, due to the occurrence of account each of the possible risks that affect a system and de-
a natural event). termines their possible consequences. It should be noted that
although many of the potential causes of hazards can be de-
– socio-economic vulnerability indicators refer to factors tected with this approach, their consequences or impacts are
for human welfare and the productive capacity of the not necessarily perceived or understood. In resilience mod-
society in relation to the malfunctioning of the infras- els for assessing the interaction between hazard and engi-
tructure. neered systems, the properties of infrastructure, like robust-
ness, redundancy, resourcefulness, and rapidity, reduce the
2 State-of-the-art assessment of infrastructure probability of failures in the systems (Cutter et al., 2008).
vulnerability and risk Solano (2010) reviews and evaluates methodologies to assess
vulnerabilities of infrastructures across a number of charac-
2.1 Overview and gaps teristics.
The second scope focuses on understanding the dynamic
Infrastructures have some basic traits in common, such as behaviour of the infrastructure systems and uses simula-
large size, wide-area coverage, complexity and interconnect- tion techniques (systems dynamics, Monte Carlo simulation,
edness, but show significant differences in detail. Methods multi-agent systems, etc.) with which it explores both pro-
for vulnerability assessment vary with the type of system, the cesses and operation in order to identify the causes of insta-
objective of the analysis, the analysis steps and the available bility in a system infrastructure. Rinaldi et al. (2001) pro-
information. No all-encompassing method exists, but rather vide an overview of how to identify, understand and anal-
an interplay of methods is necessary to provide trustworthy yse interdependencies between infrastructures. To provide a
information about vulnerabilities within and among infras- detailed description and modelling of interdependent infras-
tructures, including the effect of (inter)dependencies (Kröger tructures, many relevant data are required and often are inac-
and Zio, 2011). Methods used for vulnerability and risk as- cessible due to, for example, confidentiality and privacy is-
sessment of infrastructure include susceptibility functions, sues and a reluctance to share data (Ouyang, 2014). In many
economic theory-based approaches, probabilistic modelling, cases, the risk assessment methodologies for infrastructures
statistical analyses of past events, empirical approaches, are an adaptation of methodologies that have been used for
risk analysis of technological systems, network-based ap- assessing risks within an organization. As a consequence,
proaches, agent-based approaches, system dynamics-based these methodologies are tailored to the particular needs of
approaches, relational databases and use of vulnerability this organization and biased to consider only part of relevant
and risk indices (Yusta et al., 2011; Kröger and Zio, 2011; threats. Giannopoulos et al. (2012) have identified two main
www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/ Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017

commonly used approaches for the assessment of sectors for tion techniques or economic theory approaches, are often too
a variety of hazards: aggregated impact, where the impact of complex and time consuming to be applied as a tool to iden-
infrastructure disruption is expressed in terms of aggregated tify the most critical risk scenarios. An alternative tool for
figures that account for the economic losses, and indicator- screening the potential scenarios in a systematic, transparent
based scoring approaches, which resemble a multi-criteria and repeatable way could bridge this gap. This paper pro-
decision analysis in the sense that the final score produced poses an explicit methodology for such screenings, with the
is the weighted mean of several scores. purpose of comparing scenarios and providing an overview
In the following, special attention is given to methods that of the risks associated with each of the identified scenarios.
apply vulnerability and risk indices or identify factors rel- The application of the method within the municipal risk and
evant for vulnerability and risk for infrastructures affected vulnerability analysis in Norway will be described in the next
by adverse weather and natural hazards, in particular those section.
of the Federal Ministry of the Interior (2008), Lenz (2009), The aim of the work presented in this paper is to propose
Merz et al. (2010), Vatn et al. (2009) and Kröger (2008). The a comprehensive and user-friendly method for identification
Federal Ministry of the Interior (2008) provides guidelines and assessment of natural events leading to the malfunction-
for operators of critical infrastructures, providing a manage- ing of infrastructure. The method is designed to be consis-
ment strategy to identify risks, implement preventive mea- tent with, and a supplement to, the guidelines for munici-
sures and handle crises effectively. Lenz (2009) provides a pal risk and vulnerability analysis in Norway, provided by
detailed overview of the vulnerability of critical infrastruc- the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection, DSB (2014).
tures, distinguishing between indicators relevant for vulnera- According to these guidelines, the analysis consists of the
bility of critical infrastructure and for coping capacity. Merz following stages:
et al. (2010) go through various aspects of the assessments
of economic flood damage. Vatn et al. (2009) has developed 1. identifying adverse events (considering threats within or
a methodology that identifies adverse events as well as risk outside the municipality, but with consequences for the
and vulnerability factors which may affect the likelihood and municipality),
consequences of undesirable events. Kröger (2008) discusses 2. assessing risk and vulnerability of adverse events,
the most significant factors related to the risks faced by crit-
ical infrastructures. These include societal, system-related, 3. providing an overview of the risks associated with each
technological, institutional and natural factors, with a special of the identified adverse events (stage 1 above),
focus on issues associated with the increasing interdepen-
dence between infrastructures. Even if these methods iden- 4. following-up and
tify vulnerability indicators, they do not contain explicit pro- 5. reporting.
cedures for estimation of risk levels based on the indicators,
lacking either schemes for ranking or aggregation of the indi- The explicit method proposed in this paper targets the second
cators or for the relation between risk levels and vulnerability and third stages in the municipal risk and vulnerability anal-
indicators. yses: assessing risk and vulnerability of adverse events and
providing an overview of the risks associated with each of the
2.2 Scope of study identified adverse events in the municipality. The proposed
method is used to give a coarse overview of the risks used for
To utilise resources efficiently, the risk assessment is per- preliminary sorting of the adverse events. A more-detailed
formed at different levels of detail, starting with a coarse analysis of the events is used as basis for decisions regarding
analysis to decide for which areas or scenarios further anal- risk acceptance, follow-up and mitigation. We chose not to
yses are necessary and subsequently increase the degree of include explicit criteria or risk thresholds for recommenda-
detail and limit the scope to the most critical scenarios or tions regarding the follow-up, both because each municipal-
areas. The coarsest analyses include methods like structured ity must adapt the criteria for follow-up to their own situation
interview and brainstorming, checklists, preliminary hazard and capacity (scenarios with the highest risk must be priori-
analysis, hazard and operability study (HAZOP), What If tised regardless of risk acceptance), and because the method
Technique (SWIFT) and scenario analysis (IEC/FDIS 31010, is a coarse analysis where the scale is relative and difficult to
2009). In these methods, subjective assessments and consid- link to quantitative risk acceptance criteria.
erable use of expert judgment are necessary. For such anal- The proposed method is applicable to the main infrastruc-
yses, both diversity and depth of expertise are essential to tures (electricity supply, water supply, transportation, and
ensure satisfactory quality and consistency of the analysis information and communications technology, ICT) and to
results, avoiding too-coarse assessments or overlooking im- provide support for analysis of threats from natural events,
portant events. On the other hand, detailed quantitative anal- for planning and preparedness, and for prioritisation of risk-
yses for the assessment of the interdependent infrastructures reduction measures. The focus will be on the infrastructures
and society depending on the infrastructures, e.g. simula- of electricity supply, water supply and transportation. They

Barriers reducing the socio-economic

Barriers reducing the
consequences of the malfunctioning
probability of infrastructure
infrastructure
malfunctioning
Natural event Consequence

Adverse event:
mal-
functioning of
infrastructure
Consequence
Natural event
Physical
Socio-economic
vulnerability
vulnerability
Figure 1. Schematic representation of the scope. Factors that affect the probability of the adverse event (malfunctioning of infrastructure)
are shown on the left side (i.e. causes, barriers and physical vulnerability of the infrastructure). Factors that affect the socio-economic
consequences of the adverse event are shown on the right side.
share a number of similarities such as large size, wide-area – Dependencies: dependencies of other infrastructures,
coverage, complexity and interconnectedness. specific personnel and specific environmental condi-
Strategies for risk reduction fall into two categories: those tions makes the infrastructure more vulnerable (Federal
that minimise the probability of infrastructure malfunction- Ministry of the Interior, 2008; Vatn et al., 2009; Lenz,
ing, and those that minimise the negative effects of a mal- 2009; Kröger, 2008).
functioning (IRGC, 2007). The proposed method takes into
– Robustness: the physical robustness of risk elements
account the vulnerabilities of infrastructure and barriers that
(in particular facilities, equipment, buildings) is an im-
affect the probability of infrastructure malfunctioning. It
portant factor determining damage levels caused by an
also considers factors affecting the socio-economic conse-
extreme event (Federal Ministry of the Interior, 2008;
quences of malfunctioning of the infrastructure. The scope is
Lenz, 2009).
schematically illustrated in Fig. 1, using and demonstrating
terminology defined in the following. – Buffer capacity: buffer capacity means that the systems
Figure 1 shows a cause and effect diagram with causes impacted by an event have redundancy or auxiliary ca-
of the infrastructure malfunctioning, influenced by the phys- pacity to sustain service to a certain degree and for a cer-
ical vulnerability of the infrastructure to the natural event tain time (Federal Ministry of the Interior, 2008; Lenz,
on the left side, and consequences of this malfunctioning, 2009).
influenced by the socio-economic vulnerability on the right
side. Malfunctioning of infrastructure refers to an interrup- – Level of protection: robustness/strength of barriers pro-
tion (partly or fully) of the services provided by the infras- tecting an exposed element (i.e. a structure or a lifeline)
tructure. The scenarios could be controlled using barriers from a threat (Federal Ministry of the Interior, 2008;
which could prevent causes of malfunctioning of the infras- Lenz, 2009).
tructure and barriers for mitigation and recovery controls, – Quality level/level of maintenance and renewal: to en-
i.e. barriers that limit the consequences of the malfunction- sure appropriate quality of the infrastructure, it needs to
ing. Barriers could be physical or organisational, including be maintained and renewed systematically (Lenz, 2009;
human behaviour. Vatn et al., 2009).
The indicators identified as the most important for the
scope of this paper are based on generic indicators from – Adaptability: ability to adapt to changing framework
the literature, as described in Sect. 2.1. The indicators were conditions makes the infrastructure less vulnerable
thought to be relevant for assessing the exposure and vul- (Federal Ministry of the Interior, 2008).
nerability levels and for the resulting risk level (Institute of – Quality in operational procedures: the vulnerability of
Operational Risk, 2010). They should be measurable, at least the infrastructure depends on how well it is operated
on a relative scale, in order to enable comparison between (Vatn et al., 2009; Kröger, 2008).
different times or different study areas. The ranking of the
indicators should be based on data available to the stakehold- – Transparency/complexity/degree of coupling: the com-
ers or on the local knowledge of the stakeholder. The selected plexity of the infrastructure and its dependency on sin-
indicators are summarised below. gle components to work, contributes to a higher vulner-
ability (Perrow, 1984; Federal Ministry of the Interior,
2008; Vatn et al., 2009; Kröger, 2008).

– Redundancy/substitutes: if there is an outage or reduced Table 2. Categorisation of the probability: application of the annual
capacity in the infrastructure, it is easier to handle if probability of the natural event as an initial categorisation of the top
there are back-ups or substitutes for the infrastructure event, simplified from the guidelines from the Norwegian Direc-
(Federal Ministry of the Interior, 2008; Vatn et al., 2009; torate for Civil Protection (DSB, 2014). Each category is described
Lenz, 2009). both with the frequency and the annual probability of the natural
event.
– Restoration effort/duration: restoration effort refers to
the effort needed to restore a damaged element includ- Category Frequency of the natural event Annual probability
of the natural
ing monetary costs as well as time and staff resources
event
needed (Federal Ministry of the Interior, 2008; Vatn et
al., 2009; Lenz, 2009). E Higher than once every 10th year ≥ 10 %
D Once per 10–50 years ≥ 2, < 10 %
– Preparedness: an outage of an infrastructure is easier C Once per 50–100 years ≥ 1, < 2 %
and more-quickly restored or better handled if the sit- B Once per 100–1000 years ≥ 0.1, < 1 %
A Lower than once per 1000 years < 0.1 %
uation has been prepared for (Lenz, 2009; Vatn et al.,
2009; Merz et al., 2010).
– Early warning, emergency response and measures: if consequences of the malfunctioning infrastructure. The in-
the warning time is sufficiently long, an early warning dicators are grouped into physical vulnerabilities and socio-
system combined with emergency response and mea- economic vulnerabilities accordingly. The indicators chosen
sures may reduce the consequences of an infrastructure for the assessment of the physical vulnerability (including
outage (Merz et al., 2010). barriers reducing the probability of the malfunctioning of the
– Cascading effects and dependencies: the definition and infrastructure) applied in this method are
content of the term cascading effects are discussed by – robustness and buffer capacity,
Pescaroli and Alexander (2015) and, in short, referred
to as a “chain sequence of interconnected failures” or as – level of protection,
second-order/higher-order effects (Rinaldi et al., 2001).
Cascading effects and dependencies of other societal – quality level/age/level of maintenance and renewal,
functions on the infrastructure increase the societal con- – adaptability and quality in operational procedures, and
sequences of the infrastructure loss (Vatn et al., 2009
Federal Ministry of the Interior, 2008; Lenz, 2009). – transparency/complexity/degree of coupling.
The chosen indicators reflect different aspects of vulnerabil-

3 Methodology ity of infrastructures. The number of indicators was reduced
compared to the indicators listed in the Sect. 2.2: robustness
The method presented in this paper covers Level 2 of a three- and buffer capacity were combined since they are closely
level analysis for risk identification and risk assessment, with related, but with the difference being that buffer capacity
an increasing degree of detailing and quantification. also deals with the temporal aspect. Furthermore, adaptabil-
– Level 1: qualitative, i.e. risk identification. ity and quality of operational procedures were merged into
one indicator. Adaptability is related both to the adaptations
– Level 2: semi-quantitative analysis to rank the risk, i.e. that are physically possible and to the quality and timing
screening of the scenarios of natural events threatening of the practical implementation of adaptation. Adaptability
the infrastructures (identified in the level 1 analysis), in therefore also depends on how the infrastructure is oper-
which the scenarios with potential highest risk are iden- ated. Grothmann et al. (2013) discuss and compare frame-
tified. works for adaptive capacity for institutions. The indicators
for the dependencies on external factors for the infrastructure
– Level 3: quantitative analysis, i.e. detailed analysis of
to work would typically also be among the physical vulner-
the scenarios identified in the level 2 analysis.
ability indicators. These are, however, omitted here, as they
The second level consists of a semi-quantitative ranking of are considered less relevant for loss of infrastructure caused
the risk and is a mixture of a quantitative approach and an directly by natural events and thus outside the scope of this
indicator-based approach. The quantitative part of the ap- method. The method does not consider infrastructure mal-
proach is anchored in the probability and consequence cat- functioning caused by loss of other infrastructures or by lack
egories suggested by DSB (2014) (Tables 1 and 2). As illus- of resources. Infrastructure owners/operators would look to
trated in Fig. 1, the risk is governed by causal factors, in- improve values for the physical vulnerability indicators to
fluencing the likelihood of the malfunctioning of the infras- ensure that their infrastructure is physically robust, can tol-
tructure, as well as factors relevant for the socio-economic erate the effects of the natural event for a certain time with-

Risk posed by natural hazards to infrastructure
Frequency/probability of Severity of consequences associated with

infrastructure malfunctioning infrastructure malfunctioning Step 1
Frequency/probability of the natural Number of people served by the Step 2
hazard infrastructure
Duration of outage/time for restoration Step 3
Physical vulnerability indicators
Robustness and buffer capacity
Socio-economic vulnerability indicators
Level of protection Redundancy/substitutes
Quality level/age/level of
maintenance and renewal Cascading effects and dependencies
Adaptability and quality in Preparedness

operational procedures
Transparency/complexity/ Early warning, emergency response and

degree of coupling measures
Figure 2. Illustration of the method for semi-quantitative analyses. The indicators with dotted frames are assessed quantitatively for an initial
categorisation of the probability and consequence (Step 1). The physical and socio-economic vulnerability indicators (dash–dot frames) are
assessed semi-quantitatively (Step 2). The information from the first two steps is aggregated in the third step to assess the probability of
infrastructure malfunctioning and the severity of the consequences.
out being affected, is sufficiently protected against the natu- Table 3. Initial categorisation of consequence based on the number
ral event, fulfils high quality requirements (i.e. is new or well of infrastructure users and duration of the outage, simplified from
maintained), has the ability to adapt to changing framework the guidelines from the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection;
conditions, is well operated and is not dependent on single DSB (2014). The consequence categories are indicative and should
components to work. be adapted to the municipality’s size, i.e. in terms of number of
inhabitants.
The chosen indicators for the socio-economic vulnerabil-
ity in this study include the following: Number of < 50 50–199 200–999 ≥ 1000
infrastructure users/ persons persons persons persons
– redundancy/substitutes of the infrastructure in the study; duration of the
outage/infrastructure
– cascading effects and dependencies; loss
≥ 7 days 3 4 5 5
– preparedness;
≥ 2 days, < 7 days 2 3 4 5
≥ 1 day, < 2 days 1 2 3 4
– early warning, emergency response and measures. < 1 day 1 1 2 3
The duration of the infrastructure malfunction is included

quantitatively in the consequence assessment (see Fig. 2 and
Table 3). Thus, the indicator restoration effort/duration is However, here, the adverse event is not the natural event it-
omitted here to avoid double counting. Risk managers could self, in contrast to what is usual within natural science, but
look to optimise the values of the socio-economic vulnera- rather the malfunctioning of infrastructure caused by a natu-
bility indicators (as listed above) by ensuring that there are ral event. The methodology presented in this paper is adapted
back-ups or substitutes to the infrastructure that could pro- to be in accordance with the guidelines of the Norwegian Di-
vide the same service, that there are minimum dependencies rectorate for Civil protection (DSB, 2014). In these guide-
of other societal functions on the infrastructure, that the mal- lines, the addressed probability is the probability of an ad-
functioning of the infrastructure has been prepared for and verse event involving, for example, a natural event causing
that there is an early warning system combined with an emer- material destruction, i.e. not the probability of the natural
gency response and measures to mitigate the consequences. event itself. Similar subdivisions are found in DSB (2014),
Figure 2 shows that risk could be decomposed into the Lenz (2009), IRGC (2007), and the Committee on Assessing
probability of an adverse event and the consequences if the the Costs of Natural Disasters (1999): “It is useful to distin-
event occurs, as in traditional risk assessment approaches and guish between the physical destruction caused by natural dis-
in accordance with the definitions in the terminology section. asters to human beings and property and the consequences of

that destruction”. The consequences referred to are indirect 3.1.2 Step 2: vulnerability assessment, i.e. the ranking
consequences in terms of the societal value “stability”. of the vulnerability indicators, estimation of the
Figure 2 illustrates the content of the explicit proposed physical and socio-economic vulnerability scores
method for semi-quantitative risk assessment. The next sub-
section presents a more-detailed description of the analysis The vulnerability assessment is performed using an
steps of that method. indicator-based approach. This type of approach enables the
combination of information from different sources and dif-
3.1 Methodology for semi-quantitative risk assessment ferent formats, e.g. qualitative and quantitative data. The in-
(level 2 analysis) dicators are grouped into physical vulnerability indicators
and socio-economic vulnerability indicators. First, in the vul-
The method proposes to perform the semi-quantitative risk nerability assessment, each of the vulnerability indicators
assessment in three steps (Fig. 2) outlined in the following. are assigned an integer score value on the scale 1–5, with
1 meaning the lowest vulnerability and 5 meaning the high-
– Step 1: initial categorisation of the probability and con-
est vulnerability. To limit the use of subjective interpretation
sequence of the top event (natural hazards causing mal-
of the user, and to make the method easy to use, a description
functioning of the infrastructure).
for each score level for each indicator is provided in Tables 4
– Step 2: vulnerability assessment, i.e. the ranking of the and 5.
vulnerability indicators and estimation of the physical Second, it is beneficial, both for the sake of simplicity
and socio-economic vulnerability scores. and in order to formulate user-friendly explicit procedures,
to estimate one aggregated physical vulnerability score and
– Step 3: final categorisation of probability and conse- one aggregated socio-economic vulnerability score. There
quence, based on the initial categorisation and results are different ways of performing such a combination. The
from the vulnerability assessment. Department for Communities and Local Government (2009)
and JRC (2008) give an overview on how to undertake and
3.1.1 Step 1: initial categorisation of probability and make the best use of multi-criteria analysis techniques. Ap-
consequence of the top event (natural hazards proaches for combining the indicators may be to, for exam-
causing malfunctioning of the infrastructure) ple, estimate arithmetical or geometric averages, to perform
a fuzzy set analysis or to apply a multi-criteria decision ap-
In the initial probability classification, the analyst needs to
proach. In this paper it is chosen to aggregate the indicator
assign the probability of the natural event into one of five
scores into two vulnerability scores: (i) a physical vulnera-
quantitatively defined probability categories. The categories
bility score, estimated as a weighted average of the individ-
range from an annual probability lower than 0.1 % (proba-
ual score of the physical vulnerability indicators, and (ii) a
bility category A) to an annual probability higher than 10 %
socio-economic vulnerability score, estimated as a weighted
(probability category E). Table 2 shows the scheme for the
average of the individual score of the socio-economic vul-
categorisation into categories A–E. These probability cate-
nerability indicators. Each indicator is weighted based on
gories correspond to the categories suggested in DSB (2014).
its overall degree of influence. The weights vary with the
In the initial consequence categorisation, the analyst needs
scale, type and importance of the infrastructure in the study.
to assign the consequences into one of five consequence cat-
The weighting system is introduced to account for the rela-
egories. In this step, the consequences are determined by the
tive importance of each indicator for the total vulnerability
combination of duration of the infrastructure malfunctioning
level. If all the indicators are believed to be of equal signifi-
and the number of users served by the infrastructure. The
cance, equal weighting should be applied. Techniques to de-
lowest consequence category (consequence category 1) cor-
termine weights include expert judgment, the analytical hier-
responds to relatively few users combined with short dura-
archy process (AHP), principal component analysis and fac-
tion, while the highest consequence category (consequence
tor analysis (JRC, 2008). In the case examples presented in
category 5) corresponds to a relatively high number of users
this paper, the weights are chosen based on experience and
combined with a long malfunction duration. The boundary of
local knowledge, on the scale of 1 (least influential), 2 (mod-
the categories of users and duration are defined such that the
erately influential) or 3 (most influential). The final vulner-
number of person days (i.e. the product of persons and days)
ability estimate is formulated as a weighted average of the
increases exponentially with the consequence categories. Ta-
individual indicator scores, where the score for each indica-
ble 3 shows the scheme for the categorisation of consequence
tor is multiplied with its corresponding weight:
into consequence categories 1–5. X
Weighted average vulnerability = Indicator score
All indicators
X
· Indicator weight/ Indicator weight. (1)
All indicators

Table 4. Criteria for ranking of the physical vulnerability indicators and barriers affecting the probability of infrastructure loss. For each
indicator, the criteria for score values 1–5 are described, where score value 1 corresponds to the lowest vulnerability and 5 to the highest
vulnerability.
Physical vulnerability indicator Criteria for choice of score value 1–5

Robustness and buffer capacity The infrastructure is robust towards the natural event and/or
1 could withstand the natural event for a duration more than 2
times the median duration of the natural event.
The infrastructure is quite robust towards the natural event
2 and/or could withstand the natural event for 1–2 times the
median duration of the natural event.
The infrastructure could withstand the natural event if the
3 intensity is low–medium and/or the duration is 0.5–1 times
the median duration of the natural event.
The infrastructure could only withstand the natural event if
4 the intensity is low and the duration is less than 0.5 times
the median duration of the natural event.
5 The infrastructure is fragile to the natural event.
Level of protection (including physical Infrastructure is not exposed to, or well protected from, the
mitigation measures and exposure) 1 natural event. It is well adapted both to the current and future
climate.
Infrastructure has a low exposure to or protected from the
2 natural event in the study. Well adapted to current climate and
partially adapted to future climate.
Partially protected from the natural event in the study. Well
3
adapted to current climate, but not to future climate.
To a large extent, exposed to the natural event and insufficiently
4
adapted to current climate.
To a large extent, exposed to the natural event and infrastructure
5
is not adapted to current climate.
Quality level/age/level of maintenance and 1 Well maintained or age is < 15 % of expected lifetime.
renewal Generally well maintained or age is 15–30 % of expected
2
lifetime.
3 Some planning of renewal and maintenance.
Scarce planning of renewal and maintenance. Shortage of
4
resources.
5 Corrective maintenance only and ageing infrastructure.
Adaptability and quality in operational Infrastructure is operated by an operator and staff with long
procedures 1 experience and/or a high ability to adapt to changing framing
conditions.
Infrastructure is operated by an experienced operator and/or
2
ability to adapt to changing framing conditions.
Infrastructure is operated by an operator with some
3 experience and/or some ability to adapt to changing framing
conditions.
Infrastructure is operated by an operator with very limited
4 experience and/or a low ability to adapt to changing framing
conditions.
The infrastructure is operated by an unexperienced
5 operator/staff and/or a minimum ability to adapt to changing
framing conditions.

Table 4. Continued.
Transparency/complexity/degree of The system is not dependent on the exposed part of the

coupling 1 infrastructure to work and is, to a low extent, dependent on
single components to work.
The exposed component interacts with a few other
2
components with a low degree of coupling.
The exposed component interacts with many components
3
and the system has a high degree of coupling.
The exposed component is part of a system with a high
4
degree of complexity.
The exposed part of the infrastructure is a component in a
5
system with a high degree of complexity and coupling.
The flexibility introduced by allowing weight adjustments, an emergency response to mitigate the consequences.
combined with the generic formulation of the indicators, Score value 5 implies that the society is especially vul-
makes the method suitable to different types of infrastruc- nerable to the malfunctioning of the infrastructure with
tures and different types of natural events. All the steps of respect to the analysed indicator, i.e. the indicator con-
the procedure are implemented on an Excel work sheet to tributes to a higher socio-economic vulnerability. The
provide a simple and user-friendly tool for the risk assess- criteria chosen to describe the socio-economic vulner-
ments, described below. ability for each indicator are outlined in the scheme in
a. Physical vulnerability assessment: score values 1–5 Table 5. After the scoring of the indicators, the socio-
need to be assigned to each of the physical vulnerabil- economic vulnerability score is estimated using Eq. (1)
ity indicators. A choice of score value 1 implies a low for the socio-economic vulnerability indicators.
physical vulnerability of the infrastructure, indicating
high robustness and high buffer capacity, a high level 3.1.3 Step 3: final categorisation of probability and
of protection against the analysed natural event, a high consequence, based on the initial categorisation
quality level, a new or very well-maintained infrastruc- and results from the vulnerability assessment
ture, a high degree of adaptability and quality in opera-
tional procedures, a high degree of transparency and that The aggregation of steps 1 and 2 into final probability and
the infrastructure system has a manageable degree of consequence categories is described below.
complexity and coupling. Score value 5 implies that the
analysed infrastructure has a severe weakness with re- a. Final probability category of the adverse event: the dif-
spect to the analysed indicator, which means that the in- ference between the probability of the natural event (as
dicator contributes to a high physical vulnerability. The assessed in Step 1) and the probability of the adverse
criteria chosen to describe the physical vulnerability for event (i.e. infrastructure malfunctioning) is assessed us-
each indicator are outlined in Table 4. After the scoring the physical vulnerability score. The assessment is
ing of the indicators, the physical vulnerability score is based on the definition of conditional probability and
estimated using Eq. (1) for the physical vulnerability in- a quantitative interpretation of the vulnerability score,
dicators. as a proxy for the probability that the natural event
in study will lead to infrastructure malfunctioning. Ex-
b. Socio-economic vulnerability assessment: score val- pressing the relation between the probability of the ad-
ues 1–5 need to be assigned to each of the socio- verse event and the natural event using conditional prob-
economic vulnerability indicators. A choice of score ability, yields:
value 1 implies that the society has an optimized so-
lution with respect to the analysed indicator and infras- P (infrastructure malfunctioning caused by natural event)
tructure, contributing to lower socio-economic vulnera-
= P (natural event) · P (infrastructure malfunctioning|
bility. This is the case if the society has parallel systems
to the infrastructure or substitutes that could offer the natural event). (2)
same services as the analysed infrastructure, if the in-
frastructure is less important for the society and the mal- The physical vulnerability score could serve as a
functioning is not associated with potential cascading proxy for the conditional probability P (infrastructure
effects, and if there are routines for preparedness and malfunctioning|natural event). If the infrastructure has

Table 5. Criteria for ranking of socio-economic vulnerability indicators. For each indicator, the criteria for score values 1–5 are described,
where score value 1 corresponds to the lowest vulnerability and 5 to the highest vulnerability.
Socio-economic Criteria for choice of score value 1–5

vulnerability indicator
Redundancy/substitutes There are adequate alternatives or back-up systems for the infrastructure
1
with sufficient capacity.
There are alternatives or back-up systems for the infrastructure, which
2
implies few disadvantages for the users.
There are alternatives or back-up systems for the infrastructure, but with
3
limited capacity or which implies disadvantages for the users.
There exist alternatives, but with low (insufficient) capacity or which
4
imply major disadvantages to the users.
5 There are no back-up systems or practical alternatives.
Cascading effects and The exposed infrastructure is of negligible importance for societal
1
dependencies functions, with no potential cascading effects.
The exposed infrastructure has little importance for societal functions,
2
with potentially small cascading effects.
The exposed infrastructure has moderate importance for societal
3
functions, with potentially moderate cascading effects.
The exposed infrastructure has considerable importance for societal
4
functions, with potentially considerable cascading effects.
Important societal functions depend on the exposed infrastructure. Malfunctioning
5
of the infrastructure would potentially have large cascading effects.
Preparedness Very high risk awareness regarding the natural event, exhaustive
1
emergency response plans are available and frequent targeted drills.
High risk awareness regarding the natural event, emergency response
2
plans are available and targeted drills are performed.
Some risk awareness regarding the natural event and simple emergency
3
response plans are available.
4 Low risk awareness and insufficient emergency response plans.
Lack of risk awareness and knowledge about the natural event, with no
5
explicit emergency response plans.
Early warning, emergency The event is usually predictable well ahead of time and there is enough
response and measures time for early warning. Thoroughly prepared routines exists for warning
1
and the implementation of measures to mitigate the consequences of the
natural event.
The event is usually predictable in time for early warning. There exist
2 routines for warning and the implementation of measures to limit the
consequences of the natural event.
The natural event can potentially be predicted, but the routines for
warning are insufficient; the warning time is short or the mitigation action
3
could potentially only have a small mitigating effect on the
consequences.
Low predictability and very short warning time or mitigation action
4 could potentially only have a minor mitigating effect on the
consequences.
It is not possible to predict the natural event or there exist no known
5
mitigation measures to limit the consequences.

Table 6. Indicative criteria for determining the probability category using vulnerability indicators and adaptation of initial categorisation to
final categorisation.
Physical Adjustment of probability category

vulnerability
score
Low (e.g. < 2) The final probability category is two categories lower than the initial one.
Medium (e.g. 2–3.5) The final probability category is one category lower than the initial one.
High (e.g. > 3.5) The final probability category is equal to the initial one.
a high physical vulnerability score, then this probability the infrastructure malfunctioning and the number of in-
is approximately 1 and Eq. (2) reads frastructure users (as assessed in Step 1) as well as the
socio-economic vulnerability score.
P (infrastructure malfunctioning caused by natural event)
Adjustment of the consequence category: the number
≈ P (natural event). (3) of people affected by the malfunctioning infrastructure
could be higher or lower than the number of infras-
The probability that the infrastructure will fail (due to tructure users, depending on how the situation is han-
the natural event) is thus similar to the probability of dled and how important the malfunctioning infrastruc-
the natural event and, consequently, the final probabil- ture is for the society. The socio-economic vulnerability
ity categorisation is equal to the initial one (assessed in score is a proxy for the societal capacity to maintain
Step 1). its functions without the specific infrastructure and to
On the other extreme, if the physical vulnerability score cope with malfunctioning infrastructure. Accordingly,
is very low, the conditional probability, P (infrastructure if the socio-economic vulnerability score is low, then
malfunctioning|natural event), is low – e.g. in the order the number of affected people will be lower than the
of 10 %, the relation yields number of infrastructure users, e.g. if the infrastructure
malfunctioning is managed well and substitutes for the
P (infrastructure malfunctioning caused by natural event) service provided by the malfunctioning infrastructure
≈ 0.1 · P (natural event). (4) are established. Accordingly, the final consequence cat-
egory should be adjusted down from the initial conse-
Accordingly, a multiplication of the probability with 0.1 quence category, as assessed by using Table 3. How-
corresponds to a reduction in probability category (A– ever, if the socio-economic vulnerability score is high,
E, as shown in Table 2) of 1–2 categories, based on the then the number of affected people will be higher than
quantitative relationship between the probability cate- the number of infrastructure users, e.g. if there are large
gories, i.e. P (infrastructure malfunctioning caused by cascading effects. Then, the final consequence category
natural event) is 1–2 probability categories lower than could be higher than the initial one. The socio-economic
P (natural event). The step from the P (natural event), vulnerability score is applied to adjust the consequence
used in the initial categorisation, to P(infrastructure category according to the suggested criteria in Table 7.
malfunctioning caused by natural event), assessed in the
final categorisation, is thus accounted for through an When steps 1–3 are performed, each analysed scenario is as-
adjustment of the probability categories. The physical signed a probability category (A–E) and a consequence cat-
vulnerability score is applied to adjust the probability egory (1–5). The risk level is determined by the combination
category according to the suggested criteria shown in of these, subdivided into seven risk levels as shown in Ta-
Table 6. However, judgment should be used when ap- ble 10. Even if the vulnerability is assessed relatively, the
plying these criteria, taking into account, for example, initial classification is quantitative and each cell could there-
whether the probability of the natural event belongs to fore be anchored in quantitative risk estimates. By applying
the lower range within the category or to a higher range the quantitative criteria as a basis to assign a risk range to
and whether one of the vulnerability indicators is con- each cell in the risk matrix, it may be shown that the diago-
sidered as having a much higher importance than the nal lines in the risk matrix approximately represent equiva-
others in the analysed case. lent risk levels, i.e. that the risk is largely equal along diago-
nal lines. The approach is useful for prioritisation of mitiga-
b. Final consequence categorisation: the socio-economic tion measures, e.g. those that give priority to a certain sector
vulnerability score affects the socio-economic conse- ahead of another. Explicit criteria or risk thresholds for rec-
quences of the infrastructure malfunctioning. The fi- ommendations regarding the follow-up and risk acceptance
nal consequence category depends on the duration of are not given, both because each municipality must adapt the

Table 7. Indicative criteria for determining the consequence category using vulnerability indicators and adaptation of initial categorisation to
final categorisation.
Socio-economic Adjustment of consequence category

vulnerability
score
Low (e.g. < 2) The final consequence category is one category lower than the initial one.
Medium (e.g. 2–3.5) The final consequence category equals the initial one.
High (e.g. 3.5–5) The final consequence category is one category higher than the initial one.
Figure 3. Location of the study area in Norway (left panel source: ESRI) and the spatial extent of Stryn and Hornindal municipalities in
Western Norway (right panel source: The Norwegian Mapping Authority).
criteria for follow-up to their own situation and capacity (sce- with strong orographic effects on precipitation and weather.
narios with the highest risk must be prioritised regardless of The industries are varied, but consist mainly of small and
risk acceptance) and because the method is coarse, with a rel- medium size industrial establishments. The main road over-
ative risk scale making it difficult to relate to objective risk crossing the mountain has a rather high proportion of utility
acceptance criteria. transportation (Fakta om Stryn, 2017). The study area is ex-
posed to different types of natural hazards, especially land-
slides and avalanches, including floods and storms, which
4 Demonstration examples for the municipalities of need to be considered during the development of infrastruc-
Stryn and Hornindal ture and residential and commercial buildings in the munic-
ipality. Natural hazards have affected infrastructure repeat-
The methodology proposed in Sect. 3 was tested and demon- edly in the past (Stryn kommune Rådmannsavdelinga, 2014).
strated through application examples for the municipalities Based on the qualitative municipal risk and vulnerability
Stryn and Hornindal. Stryn and Hornindal are municipal- analysis for Stryn and Hornindal, as described in Stryn kom-
ities in the county Sogn og Fjordane in Western Norway. mune Rådmannsavdelinga (2014), the following site-specific
The characteristics for the area are the combination of fjords, scenarios were selected for testing of the proposed method:
glaciers, rivers and lakes. There are tall and steep mountains, 1. snow avalanche overrunning main road RV 15 at Stryne-
deep valleys with forested and fertile mountainsides and val- fjellet;
ley floors. The municipalities are situated just west of the wa-
ter divide separating Western and Eastern Norway (Fig. 3), 2. debris flow reaching Innvik waterworks;

Figure 4. Overview of the locations of the site-specific scenarios. The location of each scenario is identified with a red star, referring to the
scenario number in the list above. Star 1 shows the location of RV 15 in Stryn, but the actual scenario is located at a part of the road outside
the map. Source: The Norwegian Mapping Authority.
3. snow avalanche overrunning main road 724 to The resulting ranking of the vulnerability indicators for
Oldedalen; each of the scenarios are presented in Table 8. The initial
and final categorisation of probability and consequence, as
4. storm leading to failure in electricity distribution and well as the basis for the categorisation (i.e. the frequency or
communication to the municipal centre; probability of the natural event, the duration and number of
5. landslide across main road E39 at Skredestranda; people served by the infrastructure), are shown in Table 9.
Explanation of and reasoning for the ranking is given in Ap-
6. ice jam breakup in the Storelva river in Hornindal and pendix A. The method has been implemented in an Excel
failure in sewage system; sheet in which the ranking, weighting and calculations have
been performed.
7. storm leading to the closure of the ferry service between The results of the analyses are placed in a matrix with in-
Anda and Lote. creasing severity of consequence along the first axis and in-
The location of these scenarios is indicated in Fig. 4. As creasing probability along the second axis (Table 10). The
Fig. 4 shows, the analysis also considers scenarios located corresponding risk level is determined by location in the ma-
outside the municipalities that may affect the municipalities. trix, subdividing the risk into seven risk levels illustrated with
Explanations for the risk assessment of the scenarios are colour codes. In this way, the risk associated with each of the
provided in Appendix A. scenarios could easily be compared and the most critical sce-
narios identified.
Results As Table 10 shows, the ranking of the risk associated with
the analysed scenarios is as follows.
The main aim of the analyses was to demonstrate the method-
ology and test its usefulness, rather than the actual results. – Risk level 7: storm leading to failure in electricity dis-
The results are, to a large extent, based on expert judgment tribution and communication to the municipal centre;
and should be considered as preliminary. The ranking was landslide across main road E39 at Skredestranda.
performed together with a representative for the stakeholders
– Risk level 6: snow avalanche overrunning main road
in Stryn, who was leading the municipal risk and vulnera-
RV 15 at Strynefjellet; landslide across main road 724
bility analyses in Stryn and Hornindal in 2014 and who was
to Olderdalen.
knowledgeable about the hazard and risk situation in the area.
– Risk level 5: debris flow reaching Innvik waterworks.

Table 8. Ranking of indicators and determination of physical and socio-economic vulnerability scores. The first column shows the indicator
group (i.e. physical or socio-economic vulnerability), the second column the vulnerability indicator and the next columns the score values
for the scenarios.
Group Factor Score values, for scenario no.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Vulnerability Robustness and buffer capacity 4 3 4 3 4 2 3
factors, Level of protection 5 3 5 3 4 3 3
physical Quality level/age/level of maintenance and renewal 3 3 3 3 2 2 2
vulnerability Adaptability and quality in operational procedures 2 2 2 3 3 2 3
of the Transparency/complexity/degree of coupling 2 4 2 2 2 2 2
infrastructure Average score, physical vulnerability 3.5 2.9 3.5 2.9 2.9 2.2 2.7
Vulnerability Redundancy/substitutes 4 3 5 4 4 3 2
factors, Cascading effects and dependencies 3 3 3 4 3 3 3
socio-economic Preparedness 1 3 2 3 2 3 3
vulnerability Early warning, emergency response and measures 5 3 3 3 3 2 2
Average score, socio-economic vulnerability 3.4 3.0 3.4 3.5 3.0 2.8 2.5
Table 9. Initial and final categorisation of probability and consequence. The difference between the final and initial probability category
is determined by the physical vulnerability score. The difference between the final and initial consequence category is determined by the
socio-economic vulnerability score. Sc. means scenario.
Group Sc. 1 Sc. 2 Sc. 3 Sc. 4 Sc. 5 Sc. 6 Sc. 7

Probability Initial probability category E D E E E D E
according to Table 2.
Final probability category E C E D E∗ C D
according to physical
vulnerability scores in Table 8
and criteria in Table 6.
Consequence Number of infrastructure users. 800 250 100 > 1000 > 1000 800 100
Duration of the outage/ 1–2 2–7 1–2 2–7 2–7 2–7 1–2
infrastructure loss (days).
Initial consequence category 3 4 2 5 5 4 2
according to Table 3.
Final consequence category 3 4 3 5 5 3 2
according to socio-economic
vulnerability scores in Table 8
and criteria in Table 7.
∗ This probability category was not adjusted downwards even if the physical vulnerability score would indicate that. The reason for this is that the
actual landslide probability is much higher than the lower limit of the probability category.
– Risk level 4: ice jam breakup in the Storelva river in ous events were tested to demonstrate the application of the
Hornindal; failure in sewage system; storm leading to model.
closure of the ferry service between Anda and Lote. The results of the analyses provide a better overview of
the relevant risks and vulnerabilities and contribute to an in-
creased awareness in the municipalities. Knowledge about
None of the analysed scenarios ended up being low risk risk and vulnerability associated with the identified scenar-
scenarios. This is unsurprising, since the selected scenarios ios is an important first step to reduce the risk. Risk reduc-
are based on generic scenarios, identified in Stryn kommune tion is especially important for the scenarios with the highest
Rådmannsavdelinga (2014), that are believed to pose signif- risk, e.g. at risk level 6 and risk level 7. All the three sce-
icant risk to the municipalities. In addition, in order to facil- narios with a landslide or avalanche across roads emerge as
itate the data collection for the site-specific scenarios, previ-

Table 10. Results from the semi-quantitative analyses. assessment method with low to intermediate precision and
resolution. Application of the method assigns a relative risk
Risk level
E Sc. 1 & 3 Sc. 5 level to each of the scenarios, where risk level 1 implies the
7
D Sc. 7 Sc. 4 lowest risk and risk level 7 the highest risk.
6
C Sc. 6 Sc. 2 5
The risk ranking provides a useful basis for prioritisation,
B 4
where the scenarios with the highest risk levels should be
3 analysed further and followed up, e.g. by giving priority to
A
2 one sector over another. The scenarios associated with the
Probability
1 highest risk also form the basis for the allocation of resources
Conse-
1 2 3 4 5 to preparedness in the municipality, including execution of
quence
emergency management drills. The risk expressed by risk
levels serve, due to their simplicity, as a good tool to com-
pare risk between different scenarios and thus also to com-
municate the risk (Oboni and Oboni, 2013).
the most critical scenarios, in addition to the failure in elec-
There is no all-encompassing method available to anal-
tricity and communication caused by storms. The risk could
yse all aspects of infrastructure risks, but different methods
either be reduced by reducing the probability of the scenario
serve different purposes and have different advantages (and
(e.g. through implementation of physical mitigation mea-
disadvantages). The advantages with the proposed method
sures for landslides on the most exposed parts of the road)
is that it is generic and has a very broad scope (applicable
or by reducing the associated consequences (e.g. through
for assessment of socio-economic risk associated with mal-
an improvement of the socio-economic vulnerability indica-
functioning in different infrastructure sectors). It aims to be
tors, such as establishing redundant infrastructure systems).
applicable within the main types of infrastructure (electricity
Through systematic and repeated risk analyses, as described
supply, water supply and transportation). Methods are often
in Sect. 2.2 and in DSB (2014), followed by associated risk
tailored to the particular needs of the sector they are defined
management actions, the municipality can move step by step
within (Giannopoulos et al., 2012). Risk assessment meth-
towards increased safety and stable infrastructure services for
ods are a compromise between the time and cost (and data)
the inhabitants.
necessary to perform the analysis, and its ability to offer in-
formation at a level of detail allowing the risk manager to
5 Discussion understand the risk (and resilience) and allowing informed
and efficient decision making. Indicator approaches apply-
5.1 Usefulness and advantages ing a weighted mean of several scores (as in this method)
are often used in sectorial approaches (Giannopoulos et al.,
The purpose of the municipal vulnerability and risk analysis 2012). Indicators are useful for reducing complexity, measur-
is, among others, to provide an overview of adverse events ing progress, mapping and setting priorities and they could
that pose a risk to the municipality, assess risk and vulnera- serve as an important tool for decision makers (Cutter et al.,
bility across sectors, and provide a basis for objectives, prior- 2008). The proposed method serves the purpose of screen-
ities and decision making for civil protection and emergency ing scenarios of natural events threatening critical infrastruc-
planning in the municipality. It is also within the respon- ture in a municipal risk and vulnerability analysis, even if it
sibility of the municipalities to help maintain critical soci- does not allow a detailed study of the risk and vulnerability.
etal functions during and after adverse events. The proposed The method is comprehensive, yet fast. It does not require a
method is designed to be consistent with, and a supplement large amount of data. The indicator-based approach for the
to, the guidelines for municipal risk and vulnerability anal- vulnerability assessment enables a combination of different
ysis in Norway provided by the Norwegian directorate for types of data from different sources and knowledge domains
Civil Protection, DSB (2014). The focus of the method, as and on different formats. However, the user needs to have a
described in Sect. 3, is to propose a tool for the screening comprehensive knowledge of the local conditions, properties
of the potential scenarios of malfunctioning infrastructure of the infrastructure and how the infrastructure is operated.
caused by natural events in an explicit, systematic, transpar- The user also needs to be aware of the hazard situation in
ent and repeatable way that could be applied at the semi- the area, with respect to natural events, and be capable of as-
quantitative second level in a three-level approach. Due to sessing the frequency of the hazard and the importance of the
interdependencies between the infrastructures and societal various vulnerability factors for the infrastructure.
dependencies, a full analysis of risk associated with infras- The method’s purpose is to invite municipal stakeholders
tructure systems is a complicated and labour intensive task. with different types of expertise to a collaborative effort. A
The three-level strategy offers a practical approach to reduce representative for the stakeholders in Stryn helped in test-
the analysis effort related to the risk assessment (Liu et al., ing the method and found it (and the excel sheet in which
2015; Bowles et al., 2013). The proposed method is a risk the method was implemented) useful. It is desirable that the

municipalities lead this analysis themselves, in order to en- ingly be associated with subjectivity and uncertainties, both
sure that the analysis is followed up and forms an integrated within the definition of the method and the use of the method.
part of municipal risk management. The preparation of the Indicators are commonly used in vulnerability and resilience
municipal risk and vulnerability analysis is also a learning assessment, since it is often difficult to quantify vulnerability
process, which may increase risk awareness. The proposed and resilience in absolute terms without any external refer-
method guides the user with respect to which vulnerability ence with which to validate the calculations. Indicators are
factors to assess, both for assessment of the probability of the typically used to assess relative levels of vulnerability and
infrastructure malfunctioning and the societal consequences. resilience, either to compare between places or to analyse
It provides, through the explicit ranking criteria, guidance for trends over time (Cutter et al., 2008). Assigning score values
the assessment of how each indicator contributes to the over- to the indicators requires interpretation and subjective judg-
all vulnerability and how to aggregate the information into ment. This is thought to reduce the effect of subjective in-
a final result, even if some judgment is required when using terpretation through descriptions of the different score levels
the method. for each indicator. The method is applicable for different in-
The proposed method could, in addition to the risk rank- frastructures (electricity supply, water supply and transporta-
ing, provide implicit guidance on how to reduce the vulner- tion) and uses generic factors for infrastructure vulnerabil-
ability and, consequently, also the risk. The method assesses ity. Therefore, the need for precise descriptions of criteria
several aspects of vulnerability and resilience, and the re- for ranking of the indicators to limit the effect of subjectiv-
sults from the physical and socio-economic vulnerability as- ity, needs to be balanced against descriptions that are gen-
sessment could be used to identify the indicators contribut- eral enough to be valid for the different infrastructures. In
ing most to the vulnerability for each case. Special atten- addition, the interpretation of the data used to rank the in-
tion should be paid to indicators with a high vulnerability dicators requires subjective judgment, especially when using
score, especially in combination with high importance, i.e. a qualitative data. In this paper, an indicator-based approach is
high weight. The identification of the most critical indicators combined with an initial quantitative categorisation, based on
helps identify where to focus further efforts. Within the ap- explicit quantitative criteria, with the purpose of increasing
plication examples in Sect. 4, the scenarios with the high- transparency and reducing the effect of individual interpreta-
est risk were scenario 4, storm leading to failure in elec- tion on the results. The anchoring of the risk categories in the
tricity distribution and communication to the municipal cen- quantitative categories enables and justifies the comparison
tre, and scenario 5, landslide across main road E39 at Skre- between risk levels resulting from the use of the method for
destranda. For scenario 4, almost all of the physical vulner- different scenarios. However, in this study, the quantitative,
ability indicators were assigned a score value of 3, except initial categorisation of probability and consequence governs
for the transparency/complexity/degree of coupling indica- the outcome of the risk analysis, and this categorisation is
tor, which was assigned a value of 2. The most important dependent on the quality of the background knowledge.
physical vulnerability indicators were considered to be re- The weighting system and linear weighted average ap-
lated to robustness and buffer capacity and level of protec- proach to aggregate the indicators could be improved and
tion. In order to reduce the probability of infrastructure mal- made more sophisticated. However, the level of sophistica-
functioning in the most efficient way, measures involving an tion need to be balanced against the user friendliness with
increase in the robustness and/or buffer capacity of the elec- respect to the use of the method and understanding of the
tricity network as well as measures involving protection of results. Linear averaging (as applied in this method) implic-
the network should be considered. The socio-economic vul- itly assumes that the indicators are independent of each other
nerability indicators, redundancy/substitutes and cascading and that their influence is independent of the scoring of other
effects and dependencies were assigned a score of 4 and were indicators. Accordingly, a high vulnerability associated with
both considered to be of high importance. To efficiently re- one indicator could be compensated by a low vulnerability
duce the socio-economic consequences, measures to reduce associated with another indicator. This is only partly true. A
these vulnerabilities should be considered, e.g. investing in mixture of geometric and linear averaging will be considered
substitutes to the electricity distribution, like gasoline, diesel in further developments of the method, where (partly) depen-
or wind power generators, batteries or solar panels. Today, dent indicators will be averaged geometrically, e.g. indicators
society is highly dependent on electricity. Reduction of this for preparedness and early warning systems. The weighting
dependency will be complicated in general, but it can also system will also be redefined to allow weights that express a
cover a wide range of distributed initiatives, e.g. implement- larger difference in importance than the choice between in-
ing electricity-independent central heating systems. teger weights 1, 2 or 3 does. These weights were introduced
for simplicity, to make the method easy to use. A possible
5.2 Limitations, uncertainties and future needs improvement of the method would be to allow a continuous
range of weights, i.e. in the range between 0 and 1, e.g. as
Semi-quantitative, indicator-based methods will necessarily applied by Kappes et al. (2012) and Nadim et al. (2006). In
require the use of (knowledge-based) judgment and accord- addition, these weights could be determined through an an-

alytical hierarchy process, rather than by direct expert judg- The indicator approach and ranking criteria for the physi-
ment. cal as well as the socio-economic indicators make the model
Finally, there are uncertainties associated with the inter- easy to use for people knowledgeable of the municipality and
pretation of the results, as each risk level corresponds to a its infrastructures. The proposed method is seen as a useful
range of risks. The uncertainty within each risk level should screening tool for the identification of the most critical sce-
be kept in mind when interpreting the results and compar- narios and produces results that are easy to understand and to
ing risk levels. The accuracy of the method is lower than communicate.
for a purely quantitative assessment and cannot be imme- The assessment of potential threats and their related risks,
diately used for cost–benefit analyses for mitigation strate- including the identification of the most critical scenarios, is
gies. Whenever possible, the method should be compared essential for setting priorities for more-detailed risk analy-
with and calibrated against quantitative data from real events ses and infrastructure protection. The risk assessments con-
corresponding to the scenario. The probability of infrastruc- tribute to targeted investment in planning and design and fa-
ture malfunctioning obtained by the method could be cali- cilitate preparedness actions in the event of failure.
brated against empirical data on the frequency of infrastruc-
ture malfunctioning, where such data exist. For the socio-
economic consequences, however, a calibration is more diffi-
cult, as they refer to indirect consequences and not to a mea-
surable quantity. The most relevant data for comparison and
calibration would be other estimated data after an occurred
event, such as indirect economic losses or a combination of
data on the duration of the infrastructure malfunctioning and
estimated numbers of people affected by the malfunctioning.
6 Conclusions
This paper shows the development and demonstration of a

method for screening of scenarios posing a potential high risk
in terms of stability for the local society in accordance with
the Norwegian guidelines from the Norwegian Directorate
for Civil Protection, DSB (2014). The method is intended to
be the second level of a three-stage methodology for risk as-
sessments, where level 1 consists of risk identification and
level 3 consists of a detailed quantitative risk analysis. While
the proposed methodology could be applied to all types of
natural events and all types of infrastructures, level 3 analy-
ses will, to a larger extent, need to be adapted to the specific
infrastructure and types of hazard. The analysis may be part
of a municipal risk and vulnerability analysis. It can be used
on different scales by adapting the consequence categories
and can be adapted to different infrastructures through the
flexible weighting system.

Appendix A: Risk assessment of the demonstration The above-mentioned combination of users and duration
example scenarios qualify for consequence category 3–4 according to Table 3.
Assessment of the socio-economic vulnerability:
The description of the assessment of each scenario as well
as the explanation of the ranking is given in the following. – redundancy/substitutes: alternative roads offer long di-
Some of the identified scenarios are scenarios that have al- versions on partly avalanche-exposed roads (4);
ready occurred and are expected to occur again. Other sce-
– cascading effects and dependencies: moderate cascad-
narios have not occurred but were considered plausible. For
ing effects, mainly economic consequences as there is a
scenarios that already occurred, observations and newspa-
high proportion of utility transportation on the road (3);
per reports were used as data sources to support the rank-
ing of the indicators. As previously mentioned, the ranking – preparedness: very high risk awareness and high level
was performed together with a representative for the stake- of preparedness (1);
holders and is largely based on experience and local knowl-
edge. The purpose of the provided information is not to en- – early warning, emergency response and measures: early
able the reader to rank the indicators for the given scenarios, warning and closure of the road can act as a measure
but rather to demonstrate the use of the method. to save human lives but does not prevent the economic
consequences of the road closure (5).
A1 Scenario 1: snow avalanche overrunning main road
RV 15 at Strynefjellet A2 Scenario 2: debris flow reaching Innvik waterworks
The ranking of this scenario is performed by expert judg- The ranking is performed by expert judgment, based on ob-
ment, based on Kristensen (2005) and observations and servations from a similar historic event in 2014 and informa-
records of previous events from the area. The selected rank- tion given in the reports from DSB (2015b) and past Stryn
ing scores for each of the scenarios are given in parentheses. kommune Rådmannsavdelinga (2014). The selected ranking
scores for each of the scenarios are given in parentheses.
1. Probability assessment:
1. Probability assessment:
– frequency of natural hazard: every 5 years, i.e. 20 %
per year for the largest snow avalanche. This corre- – frequency of natural hazard: once per 10–50 years,
sponds to the probability category E in Table 2. i.e. probability category D according to Table 2.
2. Assessment of the physical vulnerability: 2. Assessment of the physical vulnerability:
– robustness and buffer capacity: the road will be – robustness and buffer capacity: the waterworks can
closed in the case of high avalanche danger (4); withstand moderate intensities of debris flows (3);
– level of protection: some parts of the road are es- – level of protection: partially protected from debris
pecially exposed to snow avalanches because of the flows (3);
lack of any physical protection (5); – quality level/age/level of maintenance and renewal:
– quality level/age/level of maintenance and renewal: medium age, satisfactory renewal and mainte-
the road is relatively old but is satisfactorily main- nance (3);
tained (3); – adaptability and quality in operational procedures:
– adaptability and quality in operational procedures: operated by an experienced operator, with the abil-
the infrastructure is operated by an experienced op- ity to adapt to changing framing conditions (2);
erator (2); – transparency/complexity/degree of coupling: sys-
– transparency/complexity/degree of coupling: rela- tem with large complexity and many interdepen-
tively low degree of complexity and coupling (2). dencies (4).
3. Socio-economic consequence assessment: 3. Socio-economic consequence assessment:
– number of infrastructure users: the annual daily – number of infrastructure users: 250;
traffic (ADT) is 800 (NPRA, 2012); – duration: 2–7 days.
– duration: good routines for clearing of the road.
Large avalanche is duration 2 days, and small The above-mentioned combination of users and duration
avalanche duration is 8 h. The duration can be qualify for consequence category 4 according to Table 3.
longer if the road is closed because of avalanche
danger or in combination with adverse weather.

Assessment of the socio-economic vulnerability: – preparedness: high risk awareness and preparedness re-
garding snow avalanches (2);
– redundancy/substitutes: water can be delivered with a
tank lorry, but at some point after the event the water – early warning, emergency response and measures: lim-
needs to be boiled to obtain drinking water quality (3); ited possibilities and risk-reducing effects of a warn-
ing (3).
ing effects (3); A4 Scenario 4: storm leading to failure in electricity
distribution and communication to the municipal
– preparedness: some risk awareness and simple emer-
centre
gency response plans (3);
– early warning, emergency response and measures: lim- The ranking is performed by expert judgment, partly based
ited possibilities for warning (3). on observations from a similar historic event in Decem-
ber 2011. The selected ranking score for each of the scenarios
A3 Scenario 3: snow avalanche overrunning main are given in parentheses.
road 724 to Oldedalen 1. Probability assessment:
The ranking is performed by expert judgment, based on ob- – frequency of natural hazard: severe storms more
servations from similar historic events. The selected ranking than once every 10 years. Consideration of historic
scores for each of the scenarios are given in parentheses. frequency of storms and an increase in frequency
due to climate change suggests a probability cate-
1. Probability assessment: gory E in Table 2.
– frequency of natural hazard: more often than once 2. Assessment of the physical vulnerability:
every 10 years, i.e. probability category E accord-
ing to Table 2. – robustness and buffer capacity: electricity network
could withstand storms for some time (3);
2. Assessment of the physical vulnerability:
– level of protection: partially protected and well
– robustness and buffer capacity: the road will be adapted to current climate, but not to future cli-
closed in the case of high avalanche danger (4); mate (3);
– level of protection: only partial physical protection – quality level/age/level of maintenance and renewal:
against snow avalanches (5); increasing age of the components in the electric-
ity network in Norway in general (Fridheim et al.,
– quality level/age/level of maintenance and renewal:
2009) (3);
the road has a relatively high age but is satisfacto-
rily maintained (3); – adaptability and quality in operational procedures:
some ability to adapt to changing framing condi-
– adaptability and quality in operational procedures:
tions (3);
infrastructure is operated by an experienced opera-
tor (2); – transparency/complexity/degree of coupling: low
degree of coupling (2).
– transparency/complexity/degree of coupling: low
degree of coupling. (2). 3. Socio-economic consequences:
3. Socio-economic consequences: – number of infrastructure users: population in Stryn
municipal centre is 2372 and a large number could
– number of infrastructure users: 100; be potentially affected;
– duration: 1–2 days. – duration: 2–7 days.
The above-mentioned combination of users and duration The above-mentioned combination of users and duration
qualify for consequence category 2 according to Table 3. qualify for consequence category 5 according to Table 3.
Assessment of the socio-economic vulnerability: Assessment of the socio-economic vulnerability:
– redundancy/substitutes: no alternative roads to – redundancy/substitutes: there exists alternative energy
Oldedalen (5); distribution, for example, for critical care facilities, but
not for the whole municipality (4);
ing effects, which would affect utility transportation of – cascading effects and dependencies: considerable im-
the Olden mineral water producer (3); portance for societal function (4);

– preparedness: some risk awareness and preparedness A6 Scenario 6: ice jam breakup in the Storelva river in
regarding storms (3); Hornindal and failure in sewage system
– early warning, emergency response and measures: The ranking is performed by expert judgment, partly based
storms could be warned, but mitigation actions could on observations from similar historical events. The selected
potentially only have a small reduction effect on the ranking scores for each of the scenarios are given in paren-
consequences (3). theses.
A5 Scenario 5: landslide overrunning main road E39 1. Probability assessment:
at Skredestranda
– frequency of natural hazard: every 10–50 years,
The ranking is performed by expert judgment, based on i.e. probability category D according to Table 2.
observations from previous historic events, e.g. in Novem-
ber 2015. The selected ranking scores for each of the scenar- 2. Assessment of the physical vulnerability:
ios are given in parentheses. – robustness and buffer capacity: quite robust, could
1. Probability assessment: withstand the event for some time (2);
– frequency of natural hazard: more often than once – level of protection: partially protected (3);
every 10 years, with probability category E ac- – quality level/age/level of maintenance and renewal:
cording to Table 2. (This scenario occurred twice well maintained (2);
in 2015.)
2. Assessment of the physical vulnerability: experienced operator, ability to adapt to changing
framing conditions (2);
– robustness and buffer capacity: the road will be
closed in case of a landslide of the considered – transparency/complexity/degree of coupling: low
size (4); degree of coupling (2).
– level of protection: to a large extent exposed to the 3. Socio-economic consequences:
event (4);
– quality level/age/level of maintenance and renewal: – number of infrastructure users: 800;
well-maintained road (2); – duration: 2–7 days.
The above-mentioned combination of users and duration
some ability to adapt to changing framing condi-
qualify for consequence category 4 according to Table 3.
tions (3);
Assessment of the socio-economic vulnerability:
– transparency/complexity/degree of coupling: low
degree of coupling (2). – redundancy/substitutes: alternatives which imply disad-
vantages (3);
3. Socio-economic consequences:
– number of infrastructure users: > 1000 (NPRA, – cascading effects and dependencies: moderate cascad-
2011); ing effects (3);
– duration: 2–7 days. – preparedness: some risk awareness (3);
The above-mentioned combination of users and duration – early warning, emergency response and measures: rou-
qualify for consequence category 5 according to Table 3. tines for warning and implementation of measures ex-
Assessment of the socio-economic vulnerability: ist (2).
– redundancy/substitutes: alternative roads imply major
delays (4); A7 Scenario 7: storm leading to the closure of the ferry
service between Anda and Lote
– cascading effects and dependencies: moderate impor-
tance for socio-economic functions (3); The ranking is performed by expert judgment, based
on observations from previous occurrences of this sce-
– preparedness: high risk awareness and preparedness re-
nario and on information from Stryn kommune Råd-
garding snow avalanches (2);
mannsavdelinga (2014). The selected ranking scores for each
– early warning, emergency response and measures: lim- of the scenarios are given in parentheses.
ited possibilities and risk-reduction effects of warn-
ing (3).

1. Probability assessment: 3. Socio-economic consequences:

– frequency of natural hazard: more than once every – number of infrastructure users: 100;
10th year, with probability category E according to – duration: 1–2 days.
Table 2.
The above-mentioned combination of users and duration
2. Assessment of the physical vulnerability:
qualify for consequence category 2 according to Table 3.
– robustness and buffer capacity: the ferries can op- Assessment of the socio-economic vulnerability:
erate in strong winds and relatively high waves (3);
– redundancy/substitutes: travellers can use alternative
– level of protection: to some extent exposed, but well roads with small delays (2);
adapted to current climate (3);
– quality level/age/level of maintenance and renewal:
ing effects (3);
well maintained (2);
– adaptability and quality in operational procedures: – preparedness: emergency response plans are avail-
experienced operator, with some ability to adapt to able (3);
changing framing conditions (3);
– early warning, emergency response and measures: rou-
– transparency/complexity/degree of coupling: low tines for warning and implementation of measures to
degree of coupling (2). limit the consequences exist (2).

Competing interests. The authors declare that they have no conflict Department for Communities and Local Government: Multi-criteria
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those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opin- no/globalassets/dokumenter/risiko-sarbarhet-og-beredskap/
ion of the European Union. Neither the European Union institutions pdf-er/20156984-helhetlig-ros-final-web-ny.pdf, last access:
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sponsible for the use which may be made of the information con- DSB: Veiledning til forskrift om kommunal beredskapsp-
tained therein. Reproduction is authorised provided the source is likt, Tønsberg, Norway, available at: https://www.dsb.no/
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received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Evalueringflomvestlandet2014/?Page=17 (last access: 19 Febru-
Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 606799. ary 2016), 2015b.
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Assessing The Risk Posed by Natural Hazards To Infrastructures

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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

, 17, 481–504, 2017

Assessing the risk posed by natural hazards to infrastructures

Correspondence to: Unni Marie K. Eidsvig ([email protected])

Received: 18 March 2016 – Discussion started: 11 April 2016

Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/

www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/ Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/

Barriers reducing the socio-economic

Natural event Consequence

www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/ Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017

The chosen indicators reflect different aspects of vulnerabil-

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/

Risk posed by natural hazards to infrastructure

Frequency/probability of Severity of consequences associated with

Adaptability and quality in Preparedness

Transparency/complexity/ Early warning, emergency response and

The duration of the infrastructure malfunction is included

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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/

Physical vulnerability indicator Criteria for choice of score value 1–5

www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/ Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017

Transparency/complexity/degree of The system is not dependent on the exposed part of the

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/

Socio-economic Criteria for choice of score value 1–5

www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/ Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017

Physical Adjustment of probability category

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/

Socio-economic Adjustment of consequence category

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Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/

Group Factor Score values, for scenario no.

Group Sc. 1 Sc. 2 Sc. 3 Sc. 4 Sc. 5 Sc. 6 Sc. 7

www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/ Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/

www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/ Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017

This paper shows the development and demonstration of a

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/

2. Assessment of the physical vulnerability: 2. Assessment of the physical vulnerability:

3. Socio-economic consequence assessment: 3. Socio-economic consequence assessment:

www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/ Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/

www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/ Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017

1. Probability assessment: 3. Socio-economic consequences:

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/

www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/ Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 481–504, 2017 www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/17/481/2017/

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