Ongoing maintenance work to reduce the risk of system failure is essential. Failure to adequately maintain and protect our critical infrastructure, or to build in any reserve capacity, will leave us potentially as vulnerable to critical infrastructure failure as acts of terrorism or natural disasters.
Currently very little is being done to ensure service continuity and security of supply and no agency has overall responsibility for defence against system failure. In addition to this, the UK´s regulatory systems are not driving delivery of sufficient new or upgraded critical infrastructure; not all infrastructure is governed by a regulator; maintenance funding is rarely ringfenced; the planning application process is highly protracted; and there are few incentives in place to support increased private investment in reserve network capacity.
The impacts of climate change - flooding, rising temperatures, wind, drought, rising sea level and heat waves - are a serious threat to critical infrastructure, with flooding identified as the greatest threat to the UK1.
"By far the greatest institutional threat to the resilience of the infrastructure, for which our members are responsible, comes from inadequate investment in maintenance and in the lack of strategic improvement in capacity by central government. There is a real need for both capital and revenue resources to be redirected into the local highway network if it is to regain the resilience demanded of it by society today."
County Surveyor's Society
These assertions are supported by the predicted increase in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events2. The 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that average temperatures could rise by 6oC this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at current rates3. Indeed climate change is already happening; greenhouse gas emissions have caused an increase in global temperatures of 0.7oC over the last 100 years4.
Clearly much work needs to be done in order to deal with the increasing threat of extreme natural events to UK infrastructure. The creation of the new Natural Hazards Team, charged with coordinating efforts to identify and counter relevant risks to critical infrastructure, represents a good start but it cannot succeed alone.
"CIWEM considers the risks posed by climate change (through extreme weather events) represent arguably the greatest long term threat in the context of critical infrastructure, (although we recognise that terrorism remains a significant risk)."
Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management
Government has taken action to reduce the risk to the nation from terrorist attacks. In 2007 it set up the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) to protect the UK's critical infrastructure against acts of terrorism. The CPNI works to address the threat of terrorism to the UK and our interests overseas. The current threat level in the UK is assessed as 'severe' which means an attack is highly likely5.
"Whilst reducing emissions through international agreements is critical to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change, it is clear that adaptation will also be required to ensure our infrastructure is able to cope with increased temperatures, extreme weather and sea level rise."
Met Office
1 System failure
In May 2008 hundreds of thousands of people were hit by electricity blackouts in areas of London, Cheshire, Merseyside and East Anglia. These blackouts were caused when the Sizewell B nuclear
reactor in Suffolk and Longannet coalfired power station in Fife unexpectedly stopped working within two minutes of one another6. This was followed by the failure of several other generating units throughout the day. The resulting power cuts left businesses and homes without power. Traffic lights failed and fire engines were sent out on false alarms7.
Power stations must of course occasionally be shut down for routine maintenance and unexpected faults. And it must also be said that, during the blackouts, the National Grid actively managed the electricity shortfall, minimising disruption as far as possible. But the changing electricity generation mix is leading to a potential erosion of systems flexibility, exposing UK electricity supply to the risk of blackouts. For this risk to be managed requires operational and physical resilience to be addressed within the incremental changes currently being made to energy transmission and distribution networks.
2 Climate change
The Mythe water treatment works in Gloucestershire flooded in 2007, cutting off the water supply to 350,000 people in the area for 17 days. It showed how the failure of a single piece of infrastructure can have huge repercussions across a whole region.
A total of five water treatment works and 322 sewage treatment works were put out of action by the 2007 floods. Many electricity transmission and
distribution assets were also affected, with 40,000 people in Gloucestershire left without power for up to 24 hours and 9,000 customers spending several days on rota disconnection in south Yorkshire and Humberside8.
As damaging as these failures were, it was the potentially disastrous near-misses which really exposed the dangerous weaknesses in our critical infrastructure network. Walham substation, serving 500,000 in south Wales and Gloucestershire, and a number of Sheffield substations serving 750,000 people, came close to failure – events which would no doubt have endangered lives8. Another alarming near-miss was Ulley Reservoir, near Rotherham. This large dam was in danger of breaching, which would have caused loss of life and also damaged the M1 motorway, a major electricity substation, and the gas network connection to Sheffield.
3 Terrorism
On 7 July 2005 London´s public transport system came under attack during the morning rush hour.
At about 8.50am bombs exploded on three Underground trains within minutes of each other and a fourth went off an hour later on a bus in Tavistock Square. The bombings killed 52 commuters, the four suicide bombers, and injured a further 700 people9. The bombings caused widespread disruption to London´s transport system and formed the deadliest and most damaging terrorist attack on the transport system in the city's history.
"Long term policy should address the vulnerability of the UK networks and build reserve capacity sheltered from threats"
ICE Energy Panel
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1 Climate Change: Adapting to the Inevitable. A report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
2 Henstra, D. et al. (September 2008). Background paper on Disaster Resilient Cities. A report prepared by Infrastructure Canada. Retrieved on 12 February 2009
3 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. Climate Change 2007 Synthesis Report. 17 November 2007.
4 Met Office website
5 Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure.
6 Fortson, D. (28 May 2008) Blackouts sweep the country in electricity shutdown. The Independent.
7 Ahmed, M & Hawkes, S. (28 May 2008) Blackouts hit thousands as generators fail. The Times.
8 Pitt, M. (June 2008). Learning lessons from the 2007 floods: An independent review by Sir Michael Pitt. A review commissioned by the UK Secretaries of State.
9 Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th July 2005 (11 May 2006). House of Commons. London: The Stationery Office.
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