Innovation: The new CI-RES platform to support resilience strategies

ENEA has developed CI-RES ^[1], an innovative platform designed to support national institutions and operators of essential services in risk assessment and resilience planning. Leveraging a WebGIS interface that integrates territorial datasets, hazard maps, and information on critical infrastructures, CI-RES enables comprehensive analysis of vulnerabilities, hazards, risks, potential impacts, and cascading effects across interconnected systems.

“With the CER ^[2] Directive, the European Union has expanded its focus from the physical protection of infrastructures to the overall resilience of critical entities, public or private organizations that provide essential services and are composed of physical infrastructures” explains Stefano Pizzuti, Head of the ENEA Division for Tools and Services for Critical Infrastructures and Renewable Energy Communities within the Department of Energy Technologies and Renewable Sources (TERIN). “In this context,” he adds, “CI-RES can provide a fundamental contribution to the national strategy for strengthening the resilience of critical entities ^[3], providing concrete support to institutions and operators in line with Legislative Decree No. 134 of 04/09/2024^[4]”.

Thanks to its multiple capabilities, this new technological tool can manage geospatial data, connect to remote services, and provide geometric and geographic data, metadata, thematic maps, and dashboards featuring territorial, statistical, and census information.

Through an interactive map, users can identify natural hazards that may affect infrastructures, evaluate related risks, and estimate the potential impact of specific events on infrastructures and the services they provide. The platform also supports analyses addressing “cascading effects,” acknowledging that a failure in one infrastructure - such as the electricity grid - can trigger consequences across other interdependent systems. “CI-RES will also assist critical entities in defining the stress tests required for resilience assessments mandated by law,” comments Pizzuti.

The new regulatory framework promotes a resilience-oriented approach to both natural and human-induced events - ranging from terrorism and crime to human error - that affect the physical dimension of infrastructures. At the same time, it places increased emphasis on the organizations responsible for delivering essential services. It also identifies key strategic sectors - energy, transport, banking and finance, health, drinking water, wastewater and irrigation, digital infrastructures, public administration, space, and food production, processing, and distribution - as priority areas for resilience strengthening.

“In a Country exposed to multiple natural hazards and hybrid threats, having advanced tools is essential for strengthening the resilience of critical entities,” states Maurizio Pollino, Head of the ENEA Laboratory for Analysis and Modelling of Critical Infrastructures and Essential Services at TERIN. “With the CI-RES platform, we are able to account for the mutual interaction between infrastructures and the surrounding territory, enabling the evaluation of hazards and risks and the definition of strategies to enhance resilience, while simultaneously ensuring the safety of citizens and communities.”