Estimation of Spatial and Demographic Vulnerability Due to Destruction of Transmission Infrastructure in Hostile Attacks by GIS

The dependence of human activities on the electrical energy infrastructure has increased the strategic importance of this infrastructure. The examination of various military operations shows that the power network has always been the focus of hostile attacks on this infrastructure. Understanding the destruction effects on various parts of the electric network as a result of hostile attacks, identifies important elements and provides the possibility of forecasting and planning passive and active defense strategies. The main purpose of this study is to estimate the spatial-demographic vulnerability of East Azerbaijan province due to the destruction of power transmission infrastructure. To this end, a new method based on the use of Geospatial Information System (GIS), graph theory and passive defense concepts is proposed and it is determined that if a part of an infrastructure is damaged by hostile attacks, what geographical area and how many populations will be deprived of the services of that infrastructure. The proposed method has been applied in four different hypothetical scenarios (destruction of substations in Ahar, Miyaneh, Jolfa and Tikmeh Dash) in terms of spatial and demographic dimensions to identify the effective elements of simulated power transmission network of East Azerbaijan in Iran. The results of the research show that the spatial and demographic vulnerabilities of the first scenario (degradation of the 230 kV substations) are greater than the other scenarios. With the destruction of the Ahar city power station, an area of 9190 square kilometers will suffer from power outages and 287,000 people will be affected. Compared to the destruction of substations in Ahar city, the destruction extent of substations in Miyaneh, Jolfa and Tikmeh cities was 37%, 81% and 15% in terms of power outages area and 35%, 81% and 44% in terms of population, respectively. The proposed method provides the possibility of testing and estimating the effects of destruction of various scenarios and the model created in other infrastructures such as oil and gas lines can also be used. The study of the proposed method showed that graph theory has a high capability in determining, evaluating and identifying the infrastructure of spatial-demographic vulnerability of the electricity network.