IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reensy/v179y2018icp37-51.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Allocating countermeasures to defend water distribution systems against terrorist attack

Author

Listed:
  • Monroe, Jacob
  • Ramsey, Elizabeth
  • Berglund, Emily

Abstract

Water distribution networks are critical infrastructure systems that are vulnerable to terrorist attack. Water utility management has the goal of protecting public health by allocating countermeasures, including security equipment and personnel, as a first line of defense. A malevolent actor may select an attack location, however, using a set of unknown priorities that include performance and susceptibility criteria. This research develops a multi-agent framework to simulate the attack and defense of a distribution system to analyze security resource allocation strategies for protecting against chemical contamination events. A single period attacker-defender game is simulated, in which an attacker seeks to contaminate a system node with high attack utility, and a group of defenders seeks to minimize the public health impact from intentional attack. Terrorist agent decisions are simulated using a multi-attribute utility function, and multiple cases are constructed to simulate alternative rankings of criteria. The water utility manager agent assigns security personnel and deterrent security equipment to nodes using one of three security resource allocation strategies. The agent-based modeling framework is applied to simulate attack and defense for a virtual municipality, D-town. Strategies are evaluated based on the number of consumers exposed to a critical dose when a contaminant is released.

Suggested Citation

  • Monroe, Jacob & Ramsey, Elizabeth & Berglund, Emily, 2018. "Allocating countermeasures to defend water distribution systems against terrorist attack," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 37-51.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:reensy:v:179:y:2018:i:c:p:37-51
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2018.02.014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0951832018301327
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ress.2018.02.014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George E. Apostolakis & Douglas M. Lemon, 2005. "A Screening Methodology for the Identification and Ranking of Infrastructure Vulnerabilities Due to Terrorism," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(2), pages 361-376, April.
    2. Tony Bliss & Jagadish Guria & Wayne Jones & Nigel Rockliffe, 1999. "A road safety resource allocation model," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 291-303, January.
    3. Patterson, S.A. & Apostolakis, G.E., 2007. "Identification of critical locations across multiple infrastructures for terrorist actions," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 92(9), pages 1183-1203.
    4. Regan Murray & William E. Hart & Cynthia A. Phillips & Jonathan Berry & Erik G. Boman & Robert D. Carr & Lee Ann Riesen & Jean-Paul Watson & Terra Haxton & Jonathan G. Herrmann & Robert Janke & George, 2009. "US Environmental Protection Agency Uses Operations Research to Reduce Contamination Risks in Drinking Water," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 39(1), pages 57-68, February.
    5. Talarico, Luca & Reniers, Genserik & Sörensen, Kenneth & Springael, Johan, 2015. "MISTRAL: A game-theoretical model to allocate security measures in a multi-modal chemical transportation network with adaptive adversaries," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 105-114.
    6. William M. Kroshl & Shahram Sarkani & Thomas A Mazzuchi, 2015. "Efficient Allocation of Resources for Defense of Spatially Distributed Networks Using Agent‐Based Simulation," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(9), pages 1690-1705, September.
    7. Elizabeth L. Chalecki, 2002. "A New Vigilance: Identifying and Reducing the Risks of Environmental Terrorism," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 2(1), pages 46-64, February.
    8. Emily M. Zechman, 2011. "Agent‐Based Modeling to Simulate Contamination Events and Evaluate Threat Management Strategies in Water Distribution Systems," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(5), pages 758-772, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Di Wu & Xiangbin Yan & Rui Peng & Shaomin Wu, 2020. "Optimal defence-attack strategies between one defender and two attackers," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 71(11), pages 1830-1846, November.
    2. Ossi Heino & Annina Takala & Pirjo Jukarainen & Joanna Kalalahti & Tuula Kekki & Pekka Verho, 2019. "Critical Infrastructures: The Operational Environment in Cases of Severe Disruption," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-18, February.
    3. Rongchen Zhu & Xiaofeng Hu & Xin Li & Han Ye & Nan Jia, 2020. "Modeling and Risk Analysis of Chemical Terrorist Attacks: A Bayesian Network Method," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(6), pages 1-23, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. T. R. Wang & N. Pedroni & E. Zio & V. Mousseau, 2020. "Identification of Protective Actions to Reduce the Vulnerability of Safety‐Critical Systems to Malevolent Intentional Acts: An Optimization‐Based Decision‐Making Approach," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(3), pages 565-587, March.
    2. Zhang, Zili & Li, Xiangyang & Li, Hengyun, 2015. "A quantitative approach for assessing the critical nodal and linear elements of a railway infrastructure," International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, Elsevier, vol. 8(C), pages 3-15.
    3. Bier, Vicki & Gutfraind, Alexander, 2019. "Risk analysis beyond vulnerability and resilience – characterizing the defensibility of critical systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 276(2), pages 626-636.
    4. Chen, Shun & Zhao, Xudong & Chen, Zhilong & Hou, Benwei & Wu, Yipeng, 2022. "A game-theoretic method to optimize allocation of defensive resource to protect urban water treatment plants against physical attacks," International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    5. Johansson, Jonas & Hassel, Henrik, 2010. "An approach for modelling interdependent infrastructures in the context of vulnerability analysis," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 95(12), pages 1335-1344.
    6. P. Daniel Wright & Matthew J. Liberatore & Robert L. Nydick, 2006. "A Survey of Operations Research Models and Applications in Homeland Security," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 36(6), pages 514-529, December.
    7. Kjell Hausken & Jun Zhuang, 2011. "Governments' and Terrorists' Defense and Attack in a T -Period Game," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 8(1), pages 46-70, March.
    8. Mohammad Bagher Abolhasani Jabali & Mohammad Hosein Kazemi, 2017. "Power System Event Ranking Using a New Linear Parameter-Varying Modeling with a Wide Area Measurement System-Based Approach," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-14, July.
    9. Jenelius, Erik & Mattsson, Lars-Göran, 2012. "Road network vulnerability analysis of area-covering disruptions: A grid-based approach with case study," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(5), pages 746-760.
    10. Michael Greenberg, 2012. "Our Deteriorating Physical Structures and Risk Analysis," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(12), pages 2008-2009, December.
    11. Zio, E., 2009. "Reliability engineering: Old problems and new challenges," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 125-141.
    12. Liu, Huan & Tatano, Hirokazu & Pflug, Georg & Hochrainer-Stigler, Stefan, 2021. "Post-disaster recovery in industrial sectors: A Markov process analysis of multiple lifeline disruptions," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    13. Hua Li & George E. Apostolakis & Joseph Gifun & William VanSchalkwyk & Susan Leite & David Barber, 2009. "Ranking the Risks from Multiple Hazards in a Small Community," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(3), pages 438-456, March.
    14. Zio, E., 2018. "The future of risk assessment," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 176-190.
    15. Jason R. W. Merrick & Laura A. McLay, 2010. "Is Screening Cargo Containers for Smuggled Nuclear Threats Worthwhile?," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 7(2), pages 155-171, June.
    16. Yi‐Ping Fang & Giovanni Sansavini & Enrico Zio, 2019. "An Optimization‐Based Framework for the Identification of Vulnerabilities in Electric Power Grids Exposed to Natural Hazards," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(9), pages 1949-1969, September.
    17. Yingying Xing & Shengdi Chen & Shengxue Zhu & Yi Zhang & Jian Lu, 2020. "Exploring Risk Factors Contributing to the Severity of Hazardous Material Transportation Accidents in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(4), pages 1-19, February.
    18. Joost R. Santos, 2006. "Inoperability input‐output modeling of disruptions to interdependent economic systems," Systems Engineering, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 20-34, March.
    19. Mishra, Vishrut Kumar & Palleti, Venkata Reddy & Mathur, Aditya, 2019. "A modeling framework for critical infrastructure and its application in detecting cyber-attacks on a water distribution system," International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    20. Bricha, Naji & Nourelfath, Mustapha, 2014. "Extra-capacity versus protection for supply networks under attack," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 185-196.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:reensy:v:179:y:2018:i:c:p:37-51. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/reliability-engineering-and-system-safety .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.