A systematic mapping on cascading effects in critical infrastructures

Critical infrastructures (CIs) are crucial assets for society and the economy, since they are responsible for supplying essential goods and services. Currently, and increasingly, CIs depend on each other. This interdependency among CIs makes them vulnerable to cascading disasters on a large scale, which can have a huge impact. The interconnection among CIs makes that a failure as a CI can affect another CI(s), generating so-called cascading effects. Cascading effects on CIs make a research area worthy of study and investigation and have considerable interest in terms of resilience and risk management. This paper aims to provide, through a systematic mapping study, an overview of the existing literature on cascading effects in critical infrastructures, detailing the work performed in this domain. In addition, the paper also identifies the approaches that are being taken in the context of cascade effects in critical infrastructures. We also discuss the relationship between cascade effects and infrastructures interdependencies.