Seismic vulnerability assessment of a water supply network: City of aveiro case study

Abstract

Critical infrastructures have critical importance on societies as they rely on fundamental development and safety aspects. The inoperability of these networks can cause great damage to strategical state-related activities and may reduce the ability to address the results in the aftermath of an accident or catastrophe. Taking in mind that damages in a water supply network do not depend only on the intensity of the disaster, but also on the vulnerability of each component of the entire system, it is important to ensure the ability of these infrastructures to remain operational during and after any disruptive event to prevent the loss of availability of vital goods and services, but also due to the high level of interdependence between different networks, that can lead to a propagation of effects, increasing the level of losses. The seismic vulnerability assessment of water systems is one of the most effective mitigation strategies that will allow to estimate the serviceability of the system and evaluate the estimated direct losses in terms of replacement cost. This paper aims to revise the main seismic risk assessment methodologies available for seismic vulnerability assessment of water networks and based on the selected methodology to present an application to a real network.