Preface: Natural hazard impacts on technological systems and infrastructures

Abstract

Projected changes to design ice thickness as quantified in the study by Jeong et al. (2019) will be useful information for the development of climate-resilient design standards, codes, and guides for buildings and infrastructure. Caution in designing for ice loads at latitudes higher than 40 N is warranted due to projected increases in extreme ice thickness. As the results show, it is important to examine changes in the future probability of extreme ice loads occurring simultaneously with extreme wind load in northern NA because the compounding effect may lead to an increase in load larger than the increase in ice load or wind load alone. The methodology proposed by Fluixá-Sanmartín et al. (2019) allows a detailed quantification of the effect of climate change on dam safety, which is one of the main concerns of the managers and technicians of this critical infrastructure for water supply and energy production worldwide. It can serve as a useful guide for dam owners and dam safety practitioners in the analysis of other study cases by encompassing different models and data sources. This would eventually allow a more efficient planning of dam safety investments in the long term and even the adaptation of existing dam exploitation rules. Sayão et al. (2020) also deal with dam safety but from a seismic hazard point of view. They introduce the issue of the visualization of databases, while Petrova (2020) and Frolova et al. (2020) also deal with databases of natural hazard impacts on infrastructure, providing useful tools for further research. Williams et al. (2020) conclude that the fragility functions show a trend of lower tsunami vulnerability (through lower probabilities of reaching or exceeding a given damage level) for road-use categories of potentially higher construction standards; bridges are more vulnerable to the impacts of tsunamis than roads; however, bridges are better designed to withstand the forces of tsunami loading and have a lower level of vulnerability at all hazard intensities (inundation depth) compared to buildings; culverts represent particularly vulnerable sections of roads. The topographic setting is also shown to affect the vulnerability of transportation assets in a tsunami. Braud et al. (2020) proposed the methodology that is robust, relevant, and generic enough to evaluate a nonquantitative method of runoff hazard mapping using localized runoffrelated proxy data. The results from their case study confirm that the susceptibility maps produced by the IRIP model provide relevant information related to runoff and that they can be used to design risk management strategies, as illustrated in the railway context. Among all the identified types of natural hazards in the study by Petrova (2020), hydrometeorological hazards such as heavy snowfalls and rains, floods, and ice phenomena, as well as dangerous exogenous slope processes including snow avalanches, debris flows, landslides, and rock falls, were revealed as having the largest contributions to transport accidents and disruptions. The most dangerous is the combination of heavy precipitations and strong winds. Regional differences in the risk of transport accidents between Russian federal regions were found and analyzed. Toma-Danila et al. (2020) and Mossoux et al. (2019) deal with the vulnerability of the transport infrastructure and, more precisely, the road network. This is important in emergency management in the case of a natural disaster (earthquake and volcanic eruption) in order to access such infrastructure as hospitals. Chen et al. (2019) consider the effects of human engineering in increasing landslide susceptibility and effects on infrastructure, providing case studies of two landslides in the vicinity of bridges. If the analysis of transport infrastructure may lead to better planning by providing new road segments and new infrastructure, then in the case of human engineering, land use change, a nonstructural measure, can also be undertaken to provide better land use through regional plans. Looking at the lessons learned from the database and information visualization papers which promote the conversion of data to information – and thus the digital humanities – as well as at the urban, regional, and mobility plans which are necessary to better manage transportation networks and human engineering activities, how other disciplines can contribute to natural hazard research is also highlighted.