Abhijeet Deshmukh

Impact of flood damaged critical infrastructure on communities and industries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the severity of social and economic impact of floods on the communities and industries with respect to their reliance on the flood impacted critical infrastructure. This paper illustrates a severity assessment tool to determine the reduced serviceability level of critical infrastructure after a disaster, how the change in serviceability impacts activities of associated communities and industries, and the resulting social and economic impact.Design/methodology/approach – The results presented in this paper are a part of a larger research designed to develop a decision support system for disaster impact mitigation. This research evaluated the impact of floods as a natural hazard on infrastructure and the related industries and communities in terms of criticality and vulnerability of infrastructure and the severity of social and economic impact if the critical infrastructure were to be affected. The overall research focused on the 2008 Midwest floods for the r...

Disaster impact analysis based on inter‐relationship of critical infrastructure and associated industries

Purpose – Natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina (the most destructive natural calamity in US history), have destructive impact on residents, critical infrastructure, as well as, functions and services of associated industries in the affected areas. In addition, due to a lack of both understanding of natural disaster impacts and preparedness to the hurricane, it was revealed that the emergency‐related organizations were not prepared to maximize the use of the critical infrastructure to mitigate the impacts. The purpose of this paper is to help those organizations have more understanding of disaster impacts and facilitate their decision making in order to prepare better mitigation plans.Design/methodology/approach – A disaster impact mechanism and inter‐relationships based on the main functions of associated industries are derived through an extensive literature review and case analyses. Based on these inter‐relationships, a decision support system is developed and evaluated using a winter flood disa...

Vulnerability Assessment of Critical Infrastructure, Associated Industries, and Communities during Extreme Events

Critical infrastructure play an important role in functioning of industries and communities and also responding against natural disasters to reduce their impacts (i.e., routes and bridges for evacuation and public buildings for sheltering). Due to global warming, there is an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events which pose a high risk of functional and structural failure of critical infrastructure. Recent natural disasters (i.e., Hurricane Katrina, 2008 Midwest Flood, etc.) have exposed the vulnerability of critical infrastructure in the U.S. Therefore, it is important for the emergency-related agencies to identify and fortify the vulnerable critical infrastructure ahead of time to significantly reduce the potential damage due to floods. In this paper a decision support system (DSS) using Bayesian Network theory and System Dynamics Simulation method is presented for vulnerability assessment of critical infrastructure. This DSS has been developed to support emergency agencies and industries to prepare customized mitigation strategies and plans for preparedness, response, and recovery using the criticality and vulnerability analyses.

Criticality Assessment of Lifeline Infrastructure for Enhancing Disaster Response

In normal and hazardous situations, critical infrastructure systems such as roads, bridges, electricity, gas, and waste treatment fa- cilities play a very crucial role in sustaining communities and industries. It is thus very important to examine the functional and structural sta- bility of these supporting infrastructure systems. An assessment analyzing the criticality of infrastructure systems should be performed before impact of facing extreme events, such as hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes. The criticality assessment involves using a decision support sys- temthatincorporatesvulnerabilityandseverityassessmentstoprovideemergencyagenciesandexperts,relevantinformationthatwillfacilitate an enhanced disaster mitigation response. This paper introduces the criticality assessment based on the interrelationships between the critical infrastructure systems, associated industries, and communities. The social, economic, and technical data of the 2008 Midwest floods were col- lectedthroughinterviews,siteinvestigations,andsurveyquestionnairesasapartofthisresearch.Methodologyincludesthezoneofinfluenceof critical infrastructure, activity analysis, social and economic contribution, and priority analysis between the activities and infrastructure sys- tems. Finally, the relative criticality levels of infrastructure systems were derived. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)NH.1527-6996.0000084.

Dynamic relationship between functional stress and strain capacity of post-disaster infrastructure

To mitigate the impact of natural or man-made hazards on the services of an infrastructure facility, it is important to quantitatively assess its available capacity. For example, in a post-disaster scenario, critical infrastructure is likely to experience (i) excessive demand for the service of an infrastructure and/or (ii) compromised capacity because of damage to the infrastructure and the failure of infrastructure interdependencies. As the demand grows and nears the capacity limit of an infrastructure facility, a shortage of services required for the community’s recovery will occur. The development of mitigation strategies and an assessment of their effectiveness require a systematic approach. In this paper, a functional stress–strain principle for infrastructure facilities is proposed to quantitatively assess their serviceability in post-disaster scenarios. Functional stress in infrastructure management represents a service-related demand on an infrastructure facility, while strain indicates its coping capacity. The dynamic nature of infrastructure services will be considered depending on the relationship between demand and available capacity. The allowable range of functional stress is then defined, considering plastic and elastic patterns of responses of a facility during recovery to explore strain capacity variations. The proposed principle facilitates a systematic understanding of how infrastructure facilities can adapt themselves to growing stress and the maximum level of stress they can handle. The application of the proposed functional stress–strain principle is demonstrated through case studies of two infrastructure facilities in a post-earthquake scenario: a medical facility and a power facility.

Increase in stress on infrastructure facilities due to natural disasters

ABSTRACT The services of infrastructure are often compromised in a post-disaster situation. This could be due to a direct physical impact on the infrastructure or due to a cascading impact resulting from reduced services of the supporting infrastructure. The reduced infrastructure services are unable to adequately meet the post-disaster community needs. Therefore, infrastructure facilities are likely to be operated with high stress on their capacities above the allowable stress (i.e. designed capacities) for meeting the services required. The system is unable to sustain the required serviceability level without the infusion of additional capacities when the stress level exceeds the limit stress. For example, after Haiti’s devastating earthquake, disrupted utility services, limited road networks, and the lack of civic governance influenced the capacity of all essential service providers. Furthermore, the earthquake-impacted hospitals had limited resources such as patient beds, medical staff, medical supplies and equipment for meeting the increased health needs of the community. As a result, the hospital experienced increased levels of stress related to services as they were unable to adequately meet the community health needs without external assistance from NGOs or other entities. Therefore, understanding the stress level in post-disaster infrastructure is critical for community recovery. This paper presents a new framework to (i) explore and investigate varying functional stress level in infrastructure under various disaster scenarios and (ii) develop strategies for alleviating increased stress levels in order to facilitate the recovery process. The research framework is explained using a hypothetical situation focusing on the operation of power facilities in a post-disaster situation. The proposed unique approach enables the development of sustainable mitigation strategies by relieving the stress level in critical infrastructure while ensuring to meet recovery demands at an acceptable level.

Selecting a Temporary Debris Management Site for Effective Debris Removal

The overall debris removal after disasters is often prolonged due to the huge amount of debris and lack of capacities such as a Temporary Debris Management Site (TDMS) in the community. This results in a delay of overall recovery and increases the total recovery cost. Strategic planning and building a TDMS will help in providing extra time for proper disposal of debris and clearing a disaster-impacted site that will facilitate the reconstruction process. This paper presents a unique approach for identifying and selecting TDMS locations for expediting debris removal from the community. A hypothetical example of a community impacted by a natural hazard is presented to explain how the the proposed model works. The research integrates data from a loss assessment report obtained from HAZUS-MH, Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA), and Geographical Information System (GIS) in a dynamic simulation model. Various TDMS locations could be evaluated based on the existing capacity and infrastructure services and considering factors such as overall debris removal time, associated cost, productivity, and availability of resources. Debris management teams would greatly benefit from the research for strategically siting TDMS for accelerating the debris removal process. 1. BACKGROUND AND NEEDS Recent research shows that the world is becoming vulnerable to extreme natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes. These events often cause destruction to physical assets, such as buildings and infrastructure, resulting in the generation of a large volume of debris. Removal of debris in a timely manner can be challenging for communities as it may require capacities that exceed the existing capacities of the communities. High impact disasters could result in generating five to ten times the debris volume of the annual waste generation rate of a community (Table 1). Within limited capacities after disasters, the debris removal process is unable to be completed in the desired time which delays the response and recovery efforts of the community. In the United States, the debris removal process is undertaken in alliance with the city’s waste management system. There is a need to establish a system that is able to mesh well with the existing waste management system and bolster its capacities for expediting the debris process. This will allow the communities to handle the overwhelming amount of debris generated in the desired time. Both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have emphasized the need for temporary debris management sites (TDMS) for transporting and processing debris in a timely manner (EPA, 2008; Table 1. Historical debris volume Year Event Volume Data (million CY) 2012 Hurricane Sandy 5.25 Elias, 2013 2010 Earthquake Haiti 23–60 Booth, 201

EFFECTIVE DEBRIS MANAGEMENT FOR A RESILIENT COMMUNITY

This paper presents a framework for effectively removing debris from a community after a natural disaster for expediting the community recovery. Natural disasters have a very high physical impact on communities that generate a huge volume of debris. The amount of debris is almost five to ten times higher than the annual solid waste volume in a community, and causes considerable debris removal challenges. Also, slow debris removal hinders both an emergency response and a recovery process. This framework for an effective debris management system is based on the interrelationship between critical infrastructure systems (i.e. civil, civic and social) and capacity that would enable a community to effectively remove debris in a post-disaster situation. This research focuses on the impact of the three infrastructure systems on debris management with respect to general debris removal procedure: generation, collection, transportation, process and disposal. A debris manager would benefit from this research for analyzing the existing debris management system in a community and capacities required to improve the resilience of a community with respect to debris management. This evaluation also suggests that infrastructure capacity needs to amplify the performance of debris management in a community.

A framework to assess the social and economic impacts on communities and industries due to loss in serviceability of infrastructure networks after floods

The functioning of communities and industries depends on the infrastructure network. Daily activities (such as production, shipping, supply chain, etc., for industries and commuting to work, business, schooling, etc., for communities) are performed efficiently with the help of the infrastructure network. It is vital for the infrastructure to function efficiently at all times. However, during disasters, either manmade or natural, the functioning or serviceability of the infrastructure could be severely affected. This in turn has an impact on the activities/services of communities and industries. These activities and services contribute socially and economically. When their functioning is affected and usually reduced in the case of disasters, their social and economic contribution is reduced. This reduction can be assessed as social and economic impact on communities and industries due to reduction in serviceability of the infrastructure network. This paper presents a framework that establishes a relationship between the services and activities of communities and industries and infrastructure. The paper also provides a unique approach to assess social and economic impacts due to serviceability reduction of infrastructure after floods. The framework is a step towards providing valuable information for decision making during the quick recovery phase after disaster.

APPLICATION OF SEVERITY ASSESSMENT TOOL (SAT) TO 2008 MIDWEST FLOOD AFFECTED AREAS

Critical infrastructure provides services to help support activities and functions of communities and industries. These activities/functions contribute socially and economically when performed efficiently in reliance with related critical infrastructure. During disasters, the critical infrastructure gets impacted and is unable to provide the full services which in turn affect the activities depending on that particular infrastructure. This reduces the contribution of the activities which results in impact on communities and industries. This research provides a unique perspective of preparing cities and industries against natural disasters in pre-, during and post-disaster situation. It is based on the inter-relationship that exists between communities, industries and related critical infrastructure. Identifying and fortifying infrastructure ahead of time will protect and support not only people and properties but also industrial activities and services. Moreover, it will become easier for governmental and industrial organizations to prepare mitigation plans and strategies that would help to prepare, prevent, respond, and recover from potential natural disasters. Thus, public agencies, industries and communities can largely benefit from natural disaster mitigation strategies that would help to speed up the recovery process as well as provide an effective tool to handle the disaster-related resources. The study presents a severity assessment tool (SAT) for evaluating the social and economic impacts on communities and industries due to disaster impacted infrastructure in the context of a case study of 2008 Midwest Floods in the United States. The case study demonstrates the inter-relationship between infrastructure, communities and industries as well as assessment of impacts if the level of serviceability of infrastructure was to be influenced during/after disaster situations. The results of this case study will help the city managers and emergency response agencies in understanding the social and economic impacts of disasters on infrastructure and the associated industries and communities and will assist them in preparing appropriate disaster mitigation strategies. Keywords critical infrastructure, disaster risk reduction, floods, severity, social and economic impacts. Language: en