November 22, 2022

Today, CISA released an updated Infrastructure Resilience Planning Framework (IRPF) to better help state and local planners protect infrastructure. First published in 2021, the IRPF helps incorporate critical infrastructure resilience considerations into planning activities. It can be used to support capital improvement plans, hazard mitigation plans, and other planning documents, as well as funding requests. The latest update adds important new resources and tools to better support stakeholders as they face an evolving threat environment.

The updated IRPF provides stakeholders with new resources and guidance, such as:

• A new tool for identifying critical infrastructure, the Datasets for Critical Infrastructure Identification guide. This dataset provides users with guidance on how and where to find publicly accessible geospatial information system (GIS) on critical infrastructure assets via the Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data (HIFLD) site, as well as several other GIS sites.
• Guidance on the challenges of getting a diverse set of opinions when planning. It can be challenging to get all the right stakeholders together and ensure that a diverse range of opinions and interests are considered. The IRPF 1.1 expands on the process of gathering stakeholders.
• New drought resilience information via CISA’s National Drought Resilience Partnership. This includes a new guide that provides an overview of the drought hazard, examples of direct and indirect impacts it can have on infrastructure systems, and federal resources for assessing and mitigating drought risk.
• Revised resilience concepts that incorporate CISA’s Methodology for Assessing Regional Infrastructure Resilience. It provides additional detail on analytic methods that planners can use to improve their understanding of infrastructure systems in their community.

Access the updated Infrastructure Resilience Planning Framework here.

October 26, 2021

CISA has published the full version of its Infrastructure Resilience Planning Framework, available at CISA here and below. In late September, it previewed the guide’s release by sharing a fact sheet, which WaterISAC previously reported on.

September 28, 2021

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has just published a guide, the Infrastructure Resilience Planning Framework (IRPF), to help state and local governments and critical infrastructure operators with identifying and assessing risks, and for the development and implementation of resiliency-based solutions. The framework lays out five key steps that can be incorporated into existing emergency plans, these steps include: laying the foundation, identifying critical infrastructure, assessing risk, developing actions, and implementing and evaluating. To support these steps, the framework includes guidance, tools, and resources, including infrastructure dependency questions, a meeting facilitation guide, and a collection of tools to fund resilience solutions. The outcomes of the IRPF include creating a comprehensive, integrated approach to infrastructure resilience which can reduce hazard impacts and fostering greater collaboration between stakeholders, among others. Read the recently published framework down below and access CISA’s Infrastructure Development and Recovery Program webpage here.