Mission A nation's economic and social development is increasingly dependent on a complex set of systems designed to promote the production and distribution of essential goods and services. These systems, which include the electric power grid, natural gas pipeline, information and telecommunications network, water supply, banking and finance, emergency services and the transportation, constitute its critical infrastructures. Information infrastructure is the nervous system that controls and allows all critical infrastructures to perform their normal functions. In the past decades, individual components have evolved with minimal consideration for their interdependencies and cyber interaction with other systems. However, in order for this development to continue, and for a nation or a region to maintain its attractiveness for new industry, a holistic approach to infrastructure development is needed to capture both physical and cyber interdependencies. In order to promote such an approach, the Virginia Tech Center for Energy and the Global Environment (CEAGE) has developed an infrastructure-focused initiative called the Critical Information Modeling and Assessment Program (CIMAP) to develop models and protocols to help in the assessment of critical infrastructures in a given geographical region. Individual infrastructures are grouped into three main categories: information infrastructure, supply infrastructure, and built infrastructure. Information infrastructure deals with information sector including banking and finance that enables the healthy functioning of other critical infrastructures. The supply infrastructure incorporates electricity, telecommunication, natural gas, and water supply sectors. Lastly, the built infrastructure constitutes roads, highways, bridges, railway lines, ports, terminals, airports, etc.. The focus of CIMAP is threefold in nature: analyze the changing demands on individual infrastructures; examine how these are demands are leading to infrastructure interdependencies, including cyber interdependencies; and determine how these demands and interdependencies will affect their capability and availability. In the process, CIMAP is seeking to invoke new paradigms for more effective resource utilization, including a more systematic approach to distributed electricity generation. Our Nation's critical infrastructures have historically maintained high levels of reliability and availability, with system designs based largely on an extended, statistically well-behaved, universe of events and influences derived from natural and technical forces. However, the recent extreme damage wrought by terrorist attacks in September 2001, in concert with hurricanes in Florida and the Gulf Coast during 2004 and 2005, have introduced new and more problematic variables into the planning process. Addressing these variables initially resulted in a national focus on system protection. However, critical infrastructure resilience is increasingly viewed as a prime strategic objective to drive national policy and planning. In contrast to protection, which is generally viewed as the ability to avoid exposure, injury or destruction, resilience implies the capability of systems to maintain function and structure in the face of internal and external change and to degrade gracefully when they must. In order to realize this objective, it is necessary to incorporate risk-based decision-making as an essential ingredient in infrastructure protection in order to facilitate prevention, response and recovery from major events requiring decision-making tools sensitive to interdependencies within and between infrastructure sectors CIMAP is based at the Advanced Research Institute (ARI) of Virginia Tech which is located in Arlington, Northern Virginia. CIMAP's location within the geographic area of the critical infrastructures being studied as well as its proximity to federal and international agencies and high-tech corridors in the region provide a unique advantage that will contribute to the success of the program. In particular, CIMAP seeks to draw upon new resources, from both within the Virginia Tech academic community and from a larger stakeholder community within the US and internationally.   Center Director Saifur Rahman, Professor and Director Advanced Research Institute 4300 Wilson Blvd., Suite 750 Arlington, VA 22203 Fax: (703) 528-5543 Email:srahman@vt.edu