Analysis and improvement of the FEMA risk assessment method in assessing urban infrastructure against insider threats (Case study: civilian international airports)

FEMA is a risk assessment method designed by the US Federal Emergency Management Agency for critical infrastructures. The significant advantage of this methodology lies in its simplicity as well as its comprehensiveness. In this method, in order to improve the FEMA risk assessment method, at the first stage, by reviewing existing documents and interviewing with experts in the field of risk management, some criteria for the assessment of risk, asset value and vulnerability were identified and confirmed using the Mini-Delphi technique. Also, in order to investigate the importance factor of each criteria at the assessment stages, the Analytical Hierarchy Process was used. The results of this research showed that in improving the first stage of the FEMA method namely risk assessment, ۹ criteria must be considered and the two criteria of damage severity and threat records have the highest degree of importance with the weights of ۰.۰۹ and ۰.۱۹, respectively. In improving the second stage of the FEMA method namely asset valuation, ۷ criteria were identified and the two criteria of performance value and quantitative level of beneficiaries have the highest degree of importance with the weights of ۰.۳ and ۰.۴, respectively. Finally, for the improvement of the third stage of the FEMA method namely vulnerability assessment, ۵ criteria were identified and the two criteria of accessibility and confrontation weakness have the highest degree of importance with the weights of ۰.۴ and ۰.۳, respectively. Finally, this method suggests that after the identification and determination of the degree of importance of each of the criteria in risk assessment, asset value assessment and vulnerability assessment, in order to acquire real results from the questionnaires of risk assessment, asset valuation and vulnerability assessment, the weight of each assessment criterion must be considered and then each of them must be categorized based on the scale defined in the FEMA method. Ultimately, this paper presents an improved model for the FEMA risk assessment method and increases the accuracy level of this method in the assessment of the risk of critical infrastructures. It should be mentioned that the results of this research were used for implementation on civilian airports.

Keywords:

critical infrastructures , risk management , FEMA risk assessment method , Analytical Hierarchy Process