Urban preparedness for critical infrastructures disruptions from an end user perspective

Critical infrastructures, such as energy, water and ICT supply are the backbone of societies. Especially in urban contexts, peoples’ dependency on the increasingly complex and interdependent network of critical infrastructures is daunting. However, a majority of inhabitants is rather unaware of related implications and risks, leaving individuals largely unprepared and highly vulnerable to potential critical infrastructure disruptions or failures. This is particularly true for developed countries with high supply security.

In addition, current discourses on safe and affordable operations of CI are mostly limited to the engineered part such as roads or electricity lines while hardly dealing with the soft components, namely coping capacities to overcome potential outages. With more frequent and intense occurrence of natural hazards the combination of CI complexity, dependency and unawareness poses a growing threat to urban populations with major implications for local disaster management actors and emergency services.

Based on comprehensive literature and policy analyses and this contribution will elaborate on challenges and opportunities of reducing natural hazards’ impacts on urban areas by extending assessments of critical infrastructure exposure to “soft” components, focusing on impacts on end users. Data from a major household survey conducted in a German city will be used to present and discuss damage impact types, their interlinkages as well as potential pathways towards risk reduction.