Understanding the Ripple Effect – Anytown

Anytown, a project led by London Resilience, brings together sector experts and practitioners from London and beyond to discuss the potential implications of disruption to infrastructure. London Resilience has created a model to help facilitate and map these discussions.

Phase 1 of the project looked at the potential implications of disruption to electricity and water supply, and map out the knock-on effects, and Phase 2 was completed via another series of workshops focusing on the cascading consequences and interdependencies associated with disruption to telecoms networks and gas supply to the fictional ‘Anytown,’ with scenarios considering infrastructure disruption lasting hours, days, or weeks.

The aim of the Anytown project is to raise awareness of the consequences of infrastructure disruption with all emergency response organisations in London – it’s a way of talking about disruption to London’s infrastructure, which has developed over hundreds of years, into a simple model which could be applicable anywhere in the UK.

Matthew Hogan, London Resilience Team

The model continues to be used to improve awareness of the wide-ranging consequences of infrastructure disruption. For further reading:

• Read the Anytown final report explaining the model and findings
• See the Anytown interdependency diagrams