Vulnerability evolution of critical infrastructures: A multidimensional environment-integrated system dynamics analysis

Critical infrastructures (CIs) form the foundation of modern society, highlighting the necessity of analyzing their vulnerability characteristics. Existing research on CI vulnerability has not fully explored the environmental impacts on CI vulnerability and the long-term dynamic characteristics of vulnerability. To address these gaps, this study proposes an integrated framework for CI vulnerability evolution that incorporates environmental factors from nature, physical, and socio-economic dimensions, along with four key components of CI vulnerability: risk exposure, physical fragility, environmental sensitivity, and recovery capacity. Then, a system dynamics (SD)-based model is developed to quantitatively measure the complex interactions between environmental factors and CI vulnerability, thereby revealing the dynamic evolutionary mechanisms of vulnerability driven by these interactions. The model's effectiveness is demonstrated through a case simulation, with the results revealing the following findings: First, the dynamics of CI vulnerability evolution arise from the long-term driving, feedback, and iteration processes between environmental factors and vulnerability. These processes shape the nonlinear growth and adaptive characteristics of CI vulnerability evolution. Second, each environmental factor has a distinct marginal impact and direction on the evolution of CI vulnerability. This study provides a holistic and dynamic analysis for CI vulnerability and offers insights for optimizing vulnerability mitigation strategies.