Functional Loss Assessment and Restoration Analysis to Quantify Indirect Consequences of Hazards

Abstract

The estimation of cascading indirect consequences of natural hazard events is possible if infrastructure managers quantify functional capacity losses (i.e., inability to provide adequate level of service) and downtimes of networks. This work presents a methodology to estimate probable functional capacity losses of individual objects consisting of a network and their corresponding probable restoration time, and relating them to various hazard intensities. Furthermore, the methodology quantitatively relates object functional capacity losses, object restoration time, network restoration sequence, network functional capacity loss, and network downtime to support the generation of network states, leading to the estimation of indirect consequences. This work also shows how the proposed functional loss assessment and restoration analysis processes may be integrated into disaster risk assessment processes that are designed to solely estimate direct consequences. Although this methodology supports the evaluation of infrastructure networks of no particular sector, illustrations are drawn primarily from the transport sector, including an example that demonstrates the application of this methodology.