Introduction to Infrastructure: An Introduction to Civil and Environmental Engineering

Chapter Eighteen

Security Considerations

Chapter Outline

• Introduction
• Introductory Case Study: Hurricane Katrina
• Economic Impacts and Infrastructure Security
• Critical Infrastructure
• Designing for Failure
• Water Security
• Energy Security
• Transportation Security
• Risk Considerations
• Outro

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Define infrastructure security.
2. Explain how recent catastrophic events have revealed weaknesses in our infrastructure.
3. Describe steps taken to make three infrastructure sectors (water, transportation, and energy) more secure.
4. Explain risk management and risk assessment.

Introduction

We have demonstrated in preceding chapters that infrastructure affects our economy, our health, our environment, and our society. Consequently, it makes sense that we would want our infrastructure to be secure to ensure that the economy continues to grow, that the environment is protected, and that society can function as it “normally” does.

Infrastructure security became a household term following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Following this tragedy, the news media presented many stories concerning the threat to our infrastructure from terrorist attacks, and the general public began to consider much more seriously the value of our infrastructure in terms of the security of our country. People began to understand that terrorist attacks on water treatment ...