Review of interdependent infrastructure systems vulnerability analysis

Critical infrastructures including, but not limited to power, natural gas, potable water are usually called the lifeline systems. They construct the cornerstone of modern society and are essential for the functioning of a society and its economy. As the development of the society they become more and more interconnected. The function of one infrastructure affects the function of the other infrastructures. Damages in one infrastructure often traverse to other correlative infrastructures and sometimes even back to the originated infrastructure making the infrastructure systems more fragile to various kinds of disturbances. Research on this area has become an important subject. This paper illustrates a review of vulnerability analysis for interdependent infrastructure systems and we conclude that there is no single `silver bullet solution´ to the problem of analyzing interdependent infrastructure risk and vulnerability. So a methodology framework of analysis is necessary and seems to be needed to effectively integrate the different methods in this area. At last we develop a framework for analyzing the problem of vulnerability in interdependent infrastructures.