Water supply and water quality have been key elements for homeland security.  These systems have been recognized as being potentially vulnerable to terrorist attacks of various types, including physical disruption, and bioterrorism/chemical contamination.  A successful attack could cause widespread panic, economic impacts, and a loss of public confidence in water supply systems.

Emergency response decision-makers need a tool for quickly calculating resources requirement in the aftermath of a contamination incident. A model is needed to describe the potable water distribution system itself and the cascading effects of its disruption on other public institutions such as hospitals, transportation networks, etc.

In support of the Critical infrastructure-Decision Support System (CIP-DSS) project in collaboration with some colleagues at LANL  I developed a model for a generic potable water distribution system, which serves an urban area. The main goal of this work was to model a possible scenario where a contaminant is introduced in the potable water distribution system [1]. This model developed in system dynamics is coupled to other critical infrastructures developed in the CIP-DSS Metropolitan model [2,3]. This coupling allowed to understand and quantify the consequences of a potable water distribution system disruption and the impacts on other critical infrastructures. We estimated in particular the economic and public health consequences