Abstract
Researchers are investigating the problem of estimating households with potable water service outages soon after an earthquake. Most of these modeling approaches are computationally intensive, have large proprietary data collection requirements or lack precision, making them unfeasible for rapid assessment, prioritization, and allocation of emergency water resources in large, complex disasters. This study proposes a new simplified analytical method—performed without proprietary water pipeline data—to estimate water supply needs after earthquakes, and a case study of its application in the HayWired earthquake scenario. In the HayWired scenario—a moment magnitude (Mw) 7.0 Hayward Fault earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area, California (USA)—an analysis of potable water supply in two water utility districts was performed using the University of Colorado Water Network (CUWNet) model. In the case study, application of the simplified method extends these estimates of household water service outage to the nine counties adjacent to the San Francisco Bay, aggregated by a ~250 m2 (nine-arcsecond) grid. The study estimates about 1.38 million households (3.7 million residents) out of 7.6 million residents (2017, ambient, nighttime population) with potable water service outage soon after the earthquake—about an 8% increase from the HayWired scenario estimates.
Highlights
Earthquake damage to water-supply systems threatens the health, safety, and welfare of the population, possibly more than earthquake damage to any other utility or element of the built environment [1]
The specific aim of the current study is to develop a new simplified analytical method to estimate water supply needs in earthquakes, with two notable improvements compared with previous studies: (1) loss estimation is performed without the use of proprietary water pipeline inventory data; (2) an empirical model of service outage is provided as a function of water pipeline break rates at an increased precision
We review the literature for analytical models of earthquake-induced pipeline damage and potable water service outages developed in previous efforts, with an emphasis on the Hazus loss estimation methodology [11] and the CUWNet water [1] pipeline damage model and its application in the HayWired scenario [18]
Summary
Earthquake damage to water-supply systems threatens the health, safety, and welfare of the population, possibly more than earthquake damage to any other utility or element of the built environment [1]. Water is needed for fighting fires, facilitating a sanitary environment, and potable water is crucial for drinking, among other residential, commercial, and industrial business uses [1,2]. Minimum supply standards become important for emergency management during disasters when water system infrastructure is disrupted and are used for the allocation of emergency water resources. Emergency managers recommend that homes and businesses have enough water to provide about. Many households will lack the recommended emergency water resources to survive for over three days [4]
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