Hazard Topography: Visual Approach for Identifying Critical Failure Combinations for Infrastructure

Abstract

Infrastructure catastrophes, such as the levee failure during Hurricane Katrina and the Fukashima nuclear disaster, are often triggered by a critical combination of events. Typically, engineers evaluate the risk of failure of infrastructure for a single probabilistic combination of events. This paper focuses on a visual multihazard evaluation method to evaluate infrastructure stability and critical hazard combinations. To present this method, the authors considered the multihazard stability of a flood control earth embankment, evaluated by calculating a factor of safety (FS). Multihazard topography promotes the comparison of design/repair options with stability and two other variables that affect stability. This evaluation tool will assist engineers, owners, and regulatory agencies in the best design or best mitigation evaluation process (for both cost and hazard reduction).