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Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium · Course catalogue · Infrastructure, Energy and Industry

Cities and Infrastructure Systems

Critical infrastructure and lifelines

Critical infrastructure and lifelines, taught twice over: as the working methods of the field and as its frontier since 2024, with labs on the Academy's tools, open data and the Nexus Standards.

Core course Frontier course

The discipline

01Core course · L2 Intermediate

Critical infrastructure and lifelines: foundations and practice

This area covers the lifeline systems whose failure cascades across society: electricity, water and wastewater, transport, telecommunications, and health and emergency services.

Level
L2 Intermediate
Study time
about 24 hours (planning estimate)
Status
In authoring
Prerequisites
An L1 course in the area, or an entry review

Why now

Many lifeline bridges predate current vessel-impact guidance; criticality assessment must revisit legacy assets as ship sizes and traffic grow. National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB Recommends 68 Bridges in US be Evaluated for Risk of Collapse from Vessel Strike, 20 March 2025

Learning outcomes

  1. Define criticality and the other key terms of the discipline and use them correctly in a written case
  2. Explain criticality assessment and interdependency and cascading failure with a worked example and its source
  3. Apply the discipline's method to a documented case and explain each result with its source
  4. Analyse a named case against resilience engineering, stating evidence, date and limits

Modules

  1. Criticality assessment
    • Criticality assessment
    • Interdependency and cascading failure
    • Resilience engineering
  2. Telecommunications and subsea cables
    • Telecommunications and subsea cables
    • Lifeline restoration
    • Asset management and standards
  3. Infrastructure governance and regulation
    • Infrastructure governance and regulation
    • Infrastructure investment and resilience
  4. Lab: the discipline's method
    • A disruption drops a lifeline's functionality by a measurable share; the hours it takes to climb back set the area of the resilience triangle; every asset that depends on the lifeline adds its own triangle, and the restoration plan is where the decision sits.
    • Work the method through a documented case and explain each result
    • Read the method's sources and stated values

Labs with Academy tools

Nexus Standards

Teaches

  • NRS-N6 Infrastructure risk and resilience
  • NRS-T14 Networks and connectivity risk
  • NRS-H48 Hazard family: Utility and communication network outage
  • NRS-H84 Hazard family: Energy system instability and shortfall
  • NRS-H85 Hazard family: Water and wastewater system failure
  • NRS-H86 Hazard family: Telecom and data-centre failure
  • NRS-H92 Hazard family: Ageing and degraded infrastructure
  • NRS-H88 Hazard family: Seabed infrastructure damage

Relies on

  • NS-1 The UNI and the artefact catalogue
  • NS-16 UNI application profile (how articles, documents, code, data, APIs and interfaces carry the UNI)
  • NRS-C1 Risk vocabulary and ontology
  • NRS-C2 Risk assessment method
  • NRS-C3 Hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity data
  • NRS-C4 Risk data model, identifiers and exchange
  • NRS-C6 Systemic and cascading risk
  • NRS-C7 Early warning, triggers and anticipatory action

Assessment

  • 40%Lab recordWork the discipline's method through a documented case and explain each result with its source and date
  • 40%Case memoApply the discipline's methods to a named place or organisation, stating evidence and limits
  • 20%Key terms checkShort answers on the key terms, marked against the definitions

Delivery

  • Self-paced online, with the labs in the browser
  • Cohort study over six to eight weeks, with a weekly lab review
  • Co-delivered with a partner institution, inside its own courses

Partner on this course

  • Co-teach a module and bring a current case from your work
  • Host a cohort for your learners, with your own schedule and review
  • Contribute a lab: a dataset your institution publishes openly, or a model
  • Review the course content and its references before it opens
  • Translate the course and adapt its cases to your region

How institutions and experts take part

In the Academy LMS

Course on the learning platform
Intermediate, 4 topics
Cohort group
A community group for each cohort of learners
Achievement
Recorded on completion of the assessed work

Open now in this discipline

References

  1. National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB Recommends 68 Bridges in US be Evaluated for Risk of Collapse from Vessel Strike, 20 March 2025
  2. Bruneau et al., A framework to quantitatively assess and enhance the seismic resilience of communities, 2003
  3. Rinaldi, Peerenboom and Kelly, Identifying, understanding, and analysing critical infrastructure interdependencies, 2001
  4. Hosseini, Barker and Ramirez-Marquez, A review of definitions and measures of system resilience, 2016
02Live map

Infrastructure exposure in the Danube Basin

Night-time lights as a proxy for built activity, with flood water, fires and population, over the Danube Basin.

The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.

Layers 2

Infrastructure exposure

Latest available

NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth

Loading the latest NASA imagery.

Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.

Infrastructure exposure, framed on the Danube Basin.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.

Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · NASA EONET · U.S. Geological SurveySources and licences

  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • VIIRS Black Marble night-time lights, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; distributed by the NASA Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), VIIRS 375 m active fire product, NASA LANCE; vector tiles via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University. 2018. Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11. NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). doi:10.7927/H49C6VHW. CC BY 4.0
  • ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
  • Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
  • © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). ODbL
  • Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
  • Globe: MapLibre GL JS 6.9.1, BSD-3-Clause, © MapLibre contributors.
  • Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
  • Live: U.S. Geological Survey Events are indicative, not authority warnings.
  • NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
  • River discharge forecast, 30 days with range (GloFAS via Open-Meteo): Contains modified Copernicus Emergency Management Service information 2026; not a flood warning.
  • Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (https://open-meteo.com/), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
  • Optional layers (11 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.

Layers and dates

  • Night-time lights, daily: VIIRS Black Marble (VNP46A2), NASA LAADS DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
  • Flood water, 3-day composite: VIIRS Global Flood Product, NASA LANCE · 14 Oct 2026
  • Active fires and thermal anomalies: VIIRS NOAA-20 375 m (FIRMS), NASA LANCE FIRMS · 13 Oct 2026
  • Population density, 2020: Population: CIESIN, Columbia University, Gridded Population of the World v4.11 (2018), NASA SEDAC, CC BY 4.0 · static
  • True colour: VIIRS NOAA-20 corrected reflectance, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026

03How learning runs

How learning runs, as a process you can run

Select a scenario and press Play: course, pathway, practice, faculty, cells and record.

04What is changing

Frontier course · L3 advanced, programme courses and standards

Critical infrastructure and lifelines: frontier methods

The methods, data, tools and studies that changed critical infrastructure and lifelines between 2024 and 2026, taught by reproducing them on open data.

Level
L3 Advanced
Study time
about 28 hours (planning estimate)
Status
Planned
Prerequisites
Critical infrastructure and lifelines: foundations and practice; Working knowledge of a scripting language (Python or R) for the labs

Why now

Many lifeline bridges predate current vessel-impact guidance; criticality assessment must revisit legacy assets as ship sizes and traffic grow. National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB Recommends 68 Bridges in US be Evaluated for Risk of Collapse from Vessel Strike, 20 March 2025

Learning outcomes

  1. Explain what changed in critical infrastructure and lifelines since 2024 and cite the studies, data or rules behind each change
  2. Reproduce NTSB asks owners of 68 US bridges to assess vessel strike risk on open data and state the uncertainty of the result
  3. Evaluate a 2024 to 2026 study: its question, data, method, limits and what it changes for practice
  4. Design an analysis that combines a frontier method with the faculty's instruments, and justify each choice

Modules

  1. NTSB asks owners of 68 US bridges to assess vessel strike risk
    • During the Key Bridge investigation, the NTSB recommended that 30 owners of 68 bridges in 19 states assess collapse risk from vessel collision, after finding the Key Bridge was almost 30 times above the acceptable risk threshold for critical bridges.
    • Many lifeline bridges predate current vessel-impact guidance; criticality assessment must revisit legacy assets as ship sizes and traffic grow.
    • National Transportation Safety Board, 20 March 2025
  2. Reproduction lab
    • Extend the discipline's method with one frontier method and compare its results
    • State the uncertainty and the limits of the result
    • Peer review against a shared checklist
  3. Technology that helps and the risks it carries
    • Digital twins, sensors and robotics for inspection.
    • Cascading cyber-physical failure and vendor lock-in.

Labs with Academy tools

Nexus Standards

Teaches

  • NRS-N6 Infrastructure risk and resilience
  • NRS-T14 Networks and connectivity risk
  • NRS-H48 Hazard family: Utility and communication network outage
  • NRS-H84 Hazard family: Energy system instability and shortfall
  • NRS-H85 Hazard family: Water and wastewater system failure
  • NRS-H86 Hazard family: Telecom and data-centre failure
  • NRS-H92 Hazard family: Ageing and degraded infrastructure
  • NRS-H88 Hazard family: Seabed infrastructure damage

Relies on

  • NS-1 The UNI and the artefact catalogue
  • NS-16 UNI application profile (how articles, documents, code, data, APIs and interfaces carry the UNI)
  • NRS-C1 Risk vocabulary and ontology
  • NRS-C2 Risk assessment method
  • NRS-C3 Hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity data
  • NRS-C4 Risk data model, identifiers and exchange
  • NRS-C6 Systemic and cascading risk
  • NRS-C7 Early warning, triggers and anticipatory action

Assessment

  • 50%Method reproductionReproduce one frontier method on open data and state the uncertainty of the result
  • 30%Study reviewA critical review of a 2024 to 2026 study: question, data, method, limits, what it changes
  • 20%Peer reviewReview two other learners' reproductions against a shared checklist

Delivery

  • Self-paced online, with the labs in the browser
  • Cohort study over six to eight weeks, with a weekly lab review
  • Co-delivered with a partner institution, inside its own courses

Partner on this course

  • Co-teach a module and bring a current case from your work
  • Host a cohort for your learners, with your own schedule and review
  • Contribute a lab: a dataset your institution publishes openly, or a model
  • Review the course content and its references before it opens
  • Translate the course and adapt its cases to your region

How institutions and experts take part

In the Academy LMS

Course on the learning platform
Expert, 3 topics
Cohort group
A community group for each cohort of learners
Achievement
Recorded on completion of the assessed work

Open now in this discipline

References

  1. National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB Recommends 68 Bridges in US be Evaluated for Risk of Collapse from Vessel Strike, 20 March 2025
  2. Bruneau et al., A framework to quantitatively assess and enhance the seismic resilience of communities, 2003
  3. Rinaldi, Peerenboom and Kelly, Identifying, understanding, and analysing critical infrastructure interdependencies, 2001
  4. Hosseini, Barker and Ramirez-Marquez, A review of definitions and measures of system resilience, 2016
05Take part

Take part in the work

Start from who you are.

06Questions

Questions, answers and key terms

Is the course free?
Yes. Every course and learning material of Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium, is free to study, self-paced or with a cohort. Ordinary participation has no fee; paid work, internships and fellowships are separate arrangements.
What does completing a course give me?
A completion record: the course, its version, the date and what was assessed, private by default and shared by you. It stacks into discipline, department and programme achievements. A record states what was studied and assessed and does not certify competence; it is not a licence, a professional title or an employment status.
Where do the data and the places come from?
Every faculty teaches on a twin of a real place built from open data; each layer carries its provider, licence and date, and every result on the Academy states its source. Maps and figures are indicators for teaching, never an assessment of a place.
How do I take part beyond the course?
Form a competence cell of three to seven people, study a shared pathway, take a supervised assignment in the National Working Groups, or bring a cohort from your institution. For organisations.

Key terms

Term

Criticality

The importance of an asset or service, judged by the consequences of its loss.

Term

Interdependency

A two-way relationship in which the state of one infrastructure depends on another, through physical, cyber, geographic or logical links.

Term

Cascading failure

A failure in one system that triggers failures in dependent systems.

Term

Restoration time

The time needed to return a service to an agreed level after disruption.

ReportsContribute

Contribute evidence from this page.

Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.

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