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Multi-hazard risk assessment : an interdependency approach

University of British Columbia

This research began with the Joint Infrastructure Interdependencies Research Program (JIIRP). JIIRP was part of an effort by the Government of Canada to fund research to develop innovative ways to mitigate large disaster situations. An interdependency simulator (I2Sim) was developed in the University of British Columbia through this project. This tool was developed to take into account the dynamic changes of the functional conditions of any given system. This thesis makes two major contributions to the capability of the simulator’s methodology, to handle seismic events and events that affect dense concentrations of people. The distinguishing characteristic of an earthquake event can affect the city and all the surrounding regions, causing damage to all lifeline systems. In its original form, I2Sim could model the damage and impact of each system on its own, but was unable to account for the effects of all other systems. The interdependency between systems is a crucial element for determining the impact of an earthquake and the time for recovery. The methodology proposed here can be used to measure Interdependencies and Resiliency in a region. Two cases were studied and implemented to test the methodology and the simulator. The first one was an earthquake hazard in a relatively small region (UBC Campus) in which the interdependencies and resiliency would be revealed to the emergency managers of UBC Campus; the second one, was a localized event in a massive sporting event (Winter Olympics in Vancouver), a black out in a Football Stadium that caused an uncontrolled egress, and related casualties due to a collapsing stage and the evacuation process were modelled. With the methodology and the simulator (I2Sim) it is possible to build up Region models, Disaster Scenarios, Objective Functions and Emergency Planning; and these, along with Interdependency and Resiliency calculations, will help in the preparedness, planning, response and recovery phases of any disaster.

Text

2010-08-11

Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/27271

Civil Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/