Infrastructure protection

With Climate Impacts Growing, Insurance Companies Face Big Challenges
The impacts of climate change are all around us: sea level rise, severe heat waves, drought, extreme rainfall, more powerful storms. These impacts are making natural disasters more intense and more frequent. Losses from each disaster—drought and wildfires in the southwest, severe storms in the Midwest, flooding in Kentucky and Missouri, and hurricanes in the southeast—have exceeded $1 billion, with the cumulative cost of disasters over the last five years reaching $788.4 billion.
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Examining Vulnerabilities of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure
With electric vehicles becoming more common, the risks and hazards of a cyberattack on electric vehicle charging equipment and systems also increases. Reviewing the vulnerabilities of EV charging infrastructure would help prioritize grid protections and informs policy makers.
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More Heat, Humidity as a Result of Climate Change Challenge Power Grid
Increasing heat and humidity, and the intensification of more-frequent extreme weather events, are a few of the challenges climate change poses for the nation’s power grid. A new study recommends adaptations to protect grid reliability, resiliency.
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Sea-Level Rise “May Cross Two Meters by 2100”
Land subsidence could worsen sea-level rise effects in the Asia Pacific region. Most islands in the Pacific are subsiding, presenting a challenge to infrastructure. Pacific Island Countries have low adaptative capacity to climate change.
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A Decade After Sandy, Manhattan’s Flood Barrier Is Finally in Sight — Sort of
In the wake of the October 2012 Superstorm Sandy, an ambitious project, called the “Big U,” was launched, aiming to wrap the island of Manhattan in miles of berms and artificial shorelines, creating a huge grassy shield that would both increase urban green space and defend the city from storm surge. The “Big U” shows how climate adaptation can succeed. It also shows how hard it is.
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No Evidence of Any Voting Machine Compromised: CISA
“We have seen no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was any way compromised in any race in the country”: CISA
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Searching for Critical Minerals at the Colorado-Wyoming Border
The U.S. Geological Survey announced that, with substantial funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, it will invest about $2.8 million to collect a large swath of geophysical data focusing on critical-mineral resources along the Colorado-Wyoming border.
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Software Suite Will Bolster Defenses for Soft Targets
Anyone who has ever gone to a major sporting event or concert, taken public transportation, even visited a farmer’s market on a brisk weekend morning, has likely benefitted from soft-target physical security—and perhaps didn’t even know it. DHS S&T is working developing a suite of decision-support software known as Special Event Planning Tools (SEPT) to help those in charge of securing soft targets.
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Mobile Data Collected While Traveling Over Bridges Could Help Evaluate Their Integrity
A new study suggests mobile data collected while traveling over bridges could help evaluate their integrity.
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Monitoring Potentially Hazardous Near-Earth Asteroids
An enormous number of near-Earth asteroids are posing a potential hazard to our planet. Faced with potential threats of to Earth by asteroid impact, researchers have been focusing on asteroid defense. Monitoring of and early warning about near-Earth asteroids is the premise of planetary defense.
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DHS Unveils New Cybersecurity Performance Goals for Critical Infrastructure
DHS released the Cybersecurity Performance Goals (CPGs), voluntary practices that outline the highest-priority baseline measures businesses and critical infrastructure owners of all sizes can take to protect themselves against cyber threats.
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It Is Double Trouble When Two Disasters Strike the Electrical Transmission Infrastructure
One natural disaster can knock out electric service to millions. A new study suggests that back-to-back disasters could cause catastrophic damage, but the research also identifies new ways to monitor and maintain power grids. The study, using AI, highlights the fragility of power grid networks.
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The “Cassandra of the Subways” on Hurricane Sandy, Ten Years Later
Starting in the 1990s, geophysicist Klaus Jacob started warning publicly that New York could eventually see a catastrophic storm abetted by climate change. From 2008 to 2019, he served on the New York City Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body that informs the city’s efforts to adapt infrastructure to changing climate. Most famously, he produced eearily precise projectionof where the subways would flood.
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Faster-Developing, Wetter Hurricanes to Come
Climate change sets the stage for hurricanes to rapidly intensify faster, bringing wetter storms to the U.S. Atlantic Coast and other coastlines. A warmer world heightens the risk of flooding.
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Improving Recovery of Critical Systems after Cyberattacks
Researchers aim to develop fast, accurate and efficient recovery mechanisms that, when coupled with the expeditious damage assessment techniques he has already developed, will offer an “integrated suite solution.” This will allow affected CI systems to continue running while providing as many critical functionalities as possible.
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