Systems in depth
One section per system: its state at evidence close, its exposures and what the operational series will watch.
Contents
- ·Edition home
- ·Executive summary
- 1Lifelines fail together
- 2Key findings
- 3Systems and sectors at baseline
- 4Risks and capability
- 5Power loss that overlaps a telecom or cloud failure
- 6Readings from the other desks
- 7The 2027 agenda
- 8Systems in depth
- AMethodology
- BData appendix
- CReferences and record
- ·Complete edition, for print
8.1Common causes
One cause can strike many lifelines at once: a hazard, a cyber campaign, a war or a faulty update. The shared cause matters more than the sector.
| Instance | Mechanism in action | Evidence | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Natural hazards | floods, cyclones and earthquakes drive large annual losses to infrastructure | 10 | Reported |
| Cyber operations | pre-positioning reported in four sectors | 23 | Reported |
| Conflict | direct strikes on power and water plants | 1213 | Reported |
| Software faults | one update reached millions of devices | 4 | Reported |
Pathways in this mechanism
- CLI → INF hazards
- DAT → INF software and cyber
- CON → INF strikes
Evidence to bind in 2027
- common cause tagging of incidents
- frequency of concurrent causes
Related editions
- GLB Global Systems
- SR-01 Global Polycrisis and Cascading Systems Risk
- SR-03 Global Supply Chains, Trade and Chokepoints
- SR-10 Digital Public Infrastructure and Systemic Cyber Risk
- GS-02 Energy
- GS-13 Cyber and Digital Systems
8.2Domino effects
A failure in one lifeline removes an input from the next. Power outages reach water works, exchanges and hospitals in sequence.
| Instance | Mechanism in action | Evidence | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Power to telecoms | exchanges run on batteries and generators after grid loss | 1 | Inferred |
| Software to services | one vendor update disabled many operators’ machines | 4 | Reported |
| Power to water | co-located plants lose both services when struck | 13 | Reported |
| Water to health | hospital supply depends on water works | 11 | Inferred |
Pathways in this mechanism
- ENE → INF → WAT, HLT
- DAT → INF → FIN
- CON → ENE, WAT
Evidence to bind in 2027
- sequence timing of service loss
- hospital-level dependence data
Related editions
- GLB Global Systems
- SR-01 Global Polycrisis and Cascading Systems Risk
- SR-03 Global Supply Chains, Trade and Chokepoints
- SR-10 Digital Public Infrastructure and Systemic Cyber Risk
- GS-02 Energy
- GS-13 Cyber and Digital Systems
8.3Inter-systemic feedbacks
Lifelines also depend on what they power. Control networks need telecoms, telecoms need power, and digital loads press back on grids.
| Instance | Mechanism in action | Evidence | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digital load to grid | clustered demand tightens local grids | 89 | Reported |
| Grid to digital | data centres need continuous power | 14 | Inferred |
| Remote control | control networks need telecoms and power | 5 | Inferred |
| Financial feedback | losses feed budgets and delay maintenance | 11 | Inferred |
Pathways in this mechanism
- AIC → ENE
- ENE → AIC → INF
- DAT ↔ INF
Evidence to bind in 2027
- control-network dependence data
- cluster-level reliability
Related editions
- GLB Global Systems
- SR-01 Global Polycrisis and Cascading Systems Risk
- SR-03 Global Supply Chains, Trade and Chokepoints
- SR-10 Digital Public Infrastructure and Systemic Cyber Risk
- GS-02 Energy
- GS-13 Cyber and Digital Systems
8.4Shared vulnerabilities
Different lifelines share the same weak points: subsea cables, widely deployed software, ageing assets and a few repair resources.
≈2/3
of faults from fishing and transport vessels7
| Instance | Mechanism in action | Evidence | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subsea cables | frequent, mostly accidental faults; few repair ships | 715 | Reported |
| Common software | a shared platform spreads one fault widely | 4 | Reported |
| Ageing assets | energy D+, wastewater D+, dams D+ in the US | 6 | Reported |
| Positioning and timing | signals underpin networks; no consolidated series here | 8 | Expert input |
Pathways in this mechanism
- INF → DAT cable loss
- DAT → INF software
- INF → FIN deferred maintenance
Evidence to bind in 2027
- repair-vessel capacity by region
- dependence on positioning and timing
Related editions
- GLB Global Systems
- SR-01 Global Polycrisis and Cascading Systems Risk
- SR-03 Global Supply Chains, Trade and Chokepoints
- SR-10 Digital Public Infrastructure and Systemic Cyber Risk
- GS-02 Energy
- GS-13 Cyber and Digital Systems
8.5Thresholds and tipping
A system can absorb stress until a threshold is crossed. Black-start capability, repair capacity and recovery finance are such thresholds for lifelines.
| Instance | Mechanism in action | Evidence | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Restoration capacity | service returned after 2024 and 2025 events; times not consolidated | 14 | Reported |
| Repair capacity | ageing repair fleet | 15 | Reported |
| Recovery finance | needs far exceed damage recorded to date | 12 | Reported |
| Tipping in networks | cascades can become abrupt in interdependent networks | 29 | Inferred |
Pathways in this mechanism
- INF → INF cascade thresholds
- FIN → INF recovery finance
- CON → INF repeated damage
Evidence to bind in 2027
- black-start capability data
- cascade thresholds at operating scale
Related editions
- GLB Global Systems
- SR-01 Global Polycrisis and Cascading Systems Risk
- SR-03 Global Supply Chains, Trade and Chokepoints
- SR-10 Digital Public Infrastructure and Systemic Cyber Risk
- GS-02 Energy
- GS-13 Cyber and Digital Systems
Notes
Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references
- 3ENISA (ed.), ENISA Threat Landscape 2025 (publication page; period 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025; published 1 October 2025; version 1.3 of 22 September 2026). European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, Athens. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 2CISA, NSA, FBI and partner agencies (eds.), PRC State-Sponsored Actors Compromise and Maintain Persistent Access to U.S. Critical Infrastructure (Volt Typhoon), joint cybersecurity advisory AA24-038A, 7 February 2024. CISA, Arlington. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 10UNVERIFIED, not opened: UNDRR (ed.), Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2025: Resilience Pays (annual average loss to critical infrastructure above USD 250 billion for floods, tropical cyclones and earthquakes; about USD 2.3 trillion total annual disaster cost), taken from search-result summaries; the report page returned an access error. United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Geneva. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 12UNVERIFIED, not opened: World Bank, United Nations and European Commission (eds.), Ukraine Fifth Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA5), released 23 February 2026 (needs USD 587.7 billion over ten years; energy about USD 91 billion; direct damage to energy and extractives USD 24.8 billion to end 2025), taken from search-result summaries. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 13UNVERIFIED, not opened: press and think-tank reports on strikes on power and desalination plants in Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, March to July 2026 (including The National, Arab News and the Arab Center Washington DC), taken from search-result summaries; no official damage assessment was found. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 4Microsoft (ed.), Helping our customers through the CrowdStrike outage (blog post of 20 July 2024; estimate of 8.5 million Windows devices). Microsoft, Redmond. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 1ENTSO-E (ed.), 28 April 2025 Iberian blackout: final report of the expert panel (publication page; report dated 20 March 2026). ENTSO-E, Brussels. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 11UNVERIFIED, not opened: Hallegatte, S., Rentschler, J. and Rozenberg, J., Lifelines: The Resilient Infrastructure Opportunity (disruptions cost at least USD 390 billion a year in low- and middle-income countries; USD 4.2 trillion net benefit; about USD 4 per USD 1), taken from search-result summaries; the repository returned an access error. World Bank and GFDRR, Washington, 2019. Observation year 2019. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 9IEA (ed.), Global Energy Review 2026 (revised version, May 2026). International Energy Agency, Paris. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 8IEA (ed.), Energy and AI (World Energy Outlook Special Report). International Energy Agency, Paris, April 2025. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 14UNVERIFIED, not opened: Uptime Institute (ed.), Annual Outage Analysis 2026 (57% of respondents in the 2025 survey reported a latest major outage above USD 100,000), taken from a press release summary; the report is limited to members. Uptime Institute, New York. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 5NIST (ed.), The NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0, NIST CSWP 29, 26 February 2024. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 7TeleGeography (ed.), Is it sabotage? Unraveling the mystery of undersea cable breaks (analysis of 199 faults a year, 2010 to 2023). TeleGeography, Washington. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 6ASCE (ed.), 2025 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure (overall grade C; ten-year investment gap USD 3.6 trillion; sector grades). American Society of Civil Engineers, Reston. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 15UNVERIFIED, not opened: TeleGeography (ed.), submarine cable maintenance data (June 2025; about two thirds of repair ships reach end of service life by 2040), taken from search-result summaries. TeleGeography, Washington. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 29UNVERIFIED, not opened: Buldyrev, S.V. et al., Catastrophic cascade of failures in interdependent networks, Nature 464, 1025 to 1028, 2010, cited from memory. Springer Nature. Observation year 2010. Accessed 2026-11-03.back