CRISP Type 2/Collaborative Research: Defining and Optimizing Societal Objectives for the Earthquake Risk Management of Critical Infrastructure

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

Critical infrastructure systems, such as electric power and water supply, are vital to the economy, national security, and public health, and therefore must be designed, managed, and operated so they function reliably and efficiently even in the case of an extreme event. Nevertheless, the way infrastructure system services meet societal needs and the way disruptions of those services impair the ability to meet societal needs are not well understood. That is, a lot remains unknown about the relationship between the percentage of customers receiving water or power from a utility, and the ability of businesses to operate; emergency services to perform their duties; households to get to work and school; individuals to eat, drink, and bathe. In this project, we will define the societal objectives for infrastructure system performance in earthquakes and develop a method to comprehensively optimize a broad range of risk management strategies to meet them. The method will provide a scientific basis to help infrastructure managers and policymakers in such crucial functions as emergency planning, retrofit planning, and drafting design codes. To accomplish these goals, this interdisciplinary project explicitly recognizes that infrastructure systems include not only physical objects, but also the uses, preferences, capabilities, and decisions of infrastructure operators and users. It also considers the adaptive strategies employed by operators and users in the event of a disaster that interrupts service (e.g., delaying demand, or supplementing supply with bottled water or a generator). We will improve academia-industry partnerships by engaging with our practitioner partners at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power on a full-scale case study for electricity and water in Los Angeles, and with other agencies through a sequence of expert interviews. The project will help broaden participation in disaster research and practice by providing summer internships for the underrepresented scholars who are William A. Anderson Fund Graduate Fellows. Post-docs and graduate and undergraduate research assistants will participate in all aspects of the project. Specific project tasks include: (1) Developing a probabilistic scenario-based model of the risk of multiple infrastructure systems to earthquakes with the ability to evaluate alternative risk management strategies; (2) Integrating the complementary strengths of social media, household surveys, and economic impact analyses to empirically assess societal objectives, users? adaptive strategies in responding to disruptions, and the relationships between them and traditional measures of system functioning; (3) Developing an optimization model to optimize risk management to meet societal objectives; and (4) Demonstrating models through a full-scale case study for electric power and water. The new knowledge will provide the scientific basis to support more effective and efficient risk reduction by optimizing for the true societal objectives and over a broad range of strategies, including component design, upgrading, and repair and restoration planning. Defining societal objectives will help strengthen the business case for any required interventions.