Cascading Failures in Complex Networks

TL;DR

This review paper summarizes recent models and strategies for understanding, predicting, and mitigating cascading failures in complex and interdependent networks, highlighting their dynamics, impacts, and open research questions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of physics-based and network science models for cascading failures and discusses emerging containment strategies and open challenges.

Findings

Models reveal how failure mechanisms lead to abrupt network collapse.

Interdependent networks exhibit complex failure dynamics.

Strategies for failure containment are evolving with new insights.

Abstract

Cascading failure is a potentially devastating process that spreads on real-world complex networks and can impact the integrity of wide-ranging infrastructures, natural systems, and societal cohesiveness. One of the essential features that create complex network vulnerability to failure propagation is the dependency among their components, exposing entire systems to significant risks from destabilizing hazards such as human attacks, natural disasters or internal breakdowns. Developing realistic models for cascading failures as well as strategies to halt and mitigate the failure propagation can point to new approaches to restoring and strengthening real-world networks. In this review, we summarize recent progress on models developed based on physics and complex network science to understand the mechanisms, dynamics and overall impact of cascading failures. We present models for cascading failures in single networks and interdependent networks and explain how different dynamic propagation mechanisms can lead to an abrupt collapse and a rich dynamic behavior. Finally, we close the review with novel emerging strategies for containing cascades of failures and discuss open questions that remain to be addressed.