Navigating Complexity and Hybrid Threats: The Relevance of Resilience Perspectives in a Digitalized Water Sector

Managing urban water supply systems is challenged by several factors, including increased pressure on water resources with respect to both quantity and quality. In addition, digitalization of the water sector has increased system complexity, including interdependencies between physical and digital systems. Considering a new geopolitical reality and serious threat landscape, we argue that the water sector, as a critical infrastructure faced with increased complexity and new risks (e.g., cyber and physical hybrid threats), can benefit from a more holistic resilience thinking in security practices. The paper explores the relevance of resilience thinking in a Norwegian water utility, engaging perspectives from Resilience Engineering. The paper builds interviews of employees that work with digital and physical security of water distribution systems, supplemented with a document analysis. The study finds that there is resonance with resilience principles in ongoing work and current ways of thinking. Simultaneously, we suggest that there is value in increased awareness of avoiding becoming `robust yet fragile' and highlight the importance of adaptive capabilities. In turn, this can contribute to the water sector being better prepared to handle future challenges and growing complexity of the multifaceted socio-technical water supply system.

Keywords: Resilience, Water sector, Digitalization, Security, Threat landscape.