Ketenafhankelijkheden tussen vitale en kwetsbare functies

Within the Delta Program of 2015, the following vulnerability of the 13 main national vital and vulnerable functions in the Netherlands were investigated: Electricity, Gas, Oil, Emergency communication facilities, Public network of communication, Drinking water, Waste water, Health, Stemming and Control of surface water, Transport, Chemistry, Nuclear and Infectious substances.

Instead of focusing on single functions, it is also important to take account of relations and dependencies between these components to see what happens if one function is in trouble.

This study tries to identify deficiencies in the legal instruments that deal with dependencies between vital and vulnerable functions in relation to flood risks. It also gives recommendations on how to tackle these issues in the sectors electricity, public telecom and ICT network and gas.

One advice is to implement in the existing laws and regulations a requirement which states to what extend the sectors should protect their functions in order to be able to keep functioning when a flood has occurred. This is important because currently the governments only know that the sector is protecting its functions in such a way that the sector can guarantee an as high as possible delivery security. The government does not know how long those functions  can operate on their own, also when for example the electricity fails. This is important to  know because the government is responsible for its society and the society cannot function well without electricity, the public telecom and ICT network and/ or gas.

Furthermore, it would be good to improve the supervision on the risk management of the electricity sector. This is because currently it is not known if the electricity sector is also adapting to flood risks. The supervision is currently only checking the procedure and whether the companies have executed a risks analysis.

From the existing literature it is not known if there is any supervision on the gas sector on whether the sector adapts to a possible failure of the  electricity network. This is important because a government should know about their vital infrastructure how well it copes with certain risks.

For more information, please read the whole report.