WHY THIS REPORT?

Drinking water supply, mobility, communications and energy are critical to the functioning of contemporary society. Without these services all modern societies would collapse, as major energy blackouts and train accidents often remind us. Equally indispensable are the infrastructures that enable the protection against flooding, that facilitate electronic communications and transport by road, rail and air.

The efficiency of the entire economy is heavily influenced by the effectiveness, quality and universality of these infrastructures. They are priority factors in locational decisions for investment by firms in many industries. The effects of efficiency and universality ripple throughout the economy and society in a manner that multiplies their direct impact by many times. Because of their core functions, infrastructures and the services they deliver (also referred to as public utility services) have been treated differently from other industry sectors and have not simply been left to market forces (Mooij and Prast 2002; Teulings, Bovenberg and Van Dalen 2003; Melody 2008).

Core infrastructures have become truly critical infrastructures – in the sense that they are key to continued societal and economic security and well-being in the face of external threats. Such external threats may be brought about by factors such as a growing dependence on external natural resources and terrorist threats. Indeed, these threats are increasingly recognised by policymakers both at the European and national levels. At the same time, infrastructures are also seen as the key to a successful transition towards a low-carbon sustainable future for most of the world's economies. The Netherlands, with its heavy reliance on (increasingly imported) gas and coal, its overcrowded roads, railways and airports and its ambitions to become a knowledge-intensive society is no exception. Moreover, there is the need to adjust the Dutch flood protection strategy, its water management and spatial planning policies to the challenges of the sea level rising and the increasingly violent run-off of rivers. The costs of a transition to a sustainable future are both uncertain, as well as enormous in monetary terms (€ 2 billion annually in the near future, according to the Energy Transition Platform, Taskforce Energie Transitie 2006).

THE VITAL (BUT OFTEN NEGLECTED) ROLE OF INFRASTRUCTURES

Events around the globe have illustrated not only the vital nature of infrastructures which provide key services, but also their vulnerability to external challenges – like, for instance, climate change (section 1.5.3).