A holistic approach to assess the systemic resilience of critical infrastructures: Insights from the Caribbean island of Saint-Martin in the aftermath of hurricane Irma

This study delves into multilateral and systemic disruption of critical infrastructure (CI) networks to assess the systemic resilience of CI “network-of-networks”. The study defines systemic resilience as the stability and reliability of the entire public services provided by the network-of-networks of CI. Consequently, this study proposes a robust method to implement the concept of “systemic resilience” based on actual on-site observations. The methodology consists of assessing the dynamic behavior of CI by looking at the systemic interaction of risks across various CI. A holistic network-of-networks-based approach is followed to rank CI according to their centrality degree and correspondingly assess the systemic resilience. This study sheds the light on the importance of completing the traditional silo-based CI-by-CI approach of assessing resilience with a systemic approach as a main step towards resilient communities.

The study's findings offer valuable inputs for efficient “Build-Back-Better” projects, along with insights to improve the systemic resilience. This study also incites multilateral cooperation for a systemic thinking and opens up perspectives to regime shifts/transformational approaches to a systemic risk governance with system-based decision-making.