Institution: University of California-Berkeley Proposal Number: 0836047
This award is an outcome of the competition as part of the Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (NSF 07-579) solicitation under the subtopic Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructures (RESIN). The research project is a collaborative interdisciplinary study to create, validate, and apply new Risk Assessment and Management (RAM) methods to assess and improve the design, operation, and maintenance of interdependent complex infrastructure systems (ICISs).
The recent failures of ICISs for the Greater New Orleans area due to Hurricane Katrina demonstrate unequivocally that human, organizational, social, cultural, and political considerations are major factors in assuring the reliability and performance of ICISs. To understand and improve the behavior of ICISs, it is necessary to integrate the physical / environmental sciences (technology) with the social sciences (human and organizational factors). The research team will study the California Sacramento - San Joaquin Delta flood protection, water distribution, and power supply systems. These systems are embedded in a complex and sensitive ecosystem. They also co-exist with other important ICISs such as communications, transportation, and emergency services. Like ICISs in other parts of the U.S., their effectiveness and performance have eroded over time due to age, deferred maintenance, increasing societal demands, and natural hazards. The ultimate goal of this research is to learn how to improve the resiliency and sustainability of ICISs, while maintaining other vital performance characteristics such as serviceability, safety, durability, and compatibility.
The research builds on more than two decades of collaborative interdisciplinary research during which over 600 major accidents and disasters involving ICISs were studied. The past research has resulted in the formulation and testing of engineering RAM methods for ICISs. This research addresses two vital components in the development of next generation RAM methods: (1) the probability of failure, P[F], of ICISs, and (2) the consequences of failures, C[F]. In turn, P[F] incorporates two different types of uncertainties: (1) Intrinsic (natural and analytical), P[I], and (2) Extrinsic (human and organizational), P[E]. The goals of the research are to achieve more realistic assessments of P[F] and C[F], to identify new means for mitigating and controlling P[F] and C[F], and to improve how risk information is delivered to policy and decision makers.
The proposal's primary intellectual merit is the integration of the environmental, physical, and social sciences for the development of comprehensive RAM methods for the effective design, operation, and performance of ICISs.
The primary benefits of this research to the research and practice communities, and to society, are to: (1) enable improved assessments and management of ICISs, (2) improve the education of future engineers and, (3) build advanced Geographic Information Systems (GISs) to implement the technologies required to improve the reliability and quality of ICISs
