University of Canterbury Home
    • Admin
    UC Research Repository
    UC Library
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.
    View Item 
    1. UC Home
    2. Library
    3. UC Research Repository
    4. Faculty of Engineering | Te Kaupeka Pūhanga
    5. Engineering: Journal Articles
    6. View Item
    1. UC Home
    2.  > 
    3. Library
    4.  > 
    5. UC Research Repository
    6.  > 
    7. Faculty of Engineering | Te Kaupeka Pūhanga
    8.  > 
    9. Engineering: Journal Articles
    10.  > 
    11. View Item

    Assessing transportation vulnerability to tsunamis: utilising post-event field data from the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami, Japan, and the 2015 Illapel tsunami, Chile (2020)

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    nhess-20-451-2020.pdf (20.06Mb)
    Type of Content
    Journal Article
    UC Permalink
    https://hdl.handle.net/10092/100047
    
    Publisher's DOI/URI
    https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-451-2020
    
    Publisher
    Copernicus GmbH
    ISSN
    1684-9981
    Language
    English
    Collections
    • Engineering: Journal Articles [1630]
    Authors
    Williams, J.H.
    Wilson, T.M.
    Horspool, N.
    Paulik, R.
    Wotherspoon, L.
    Lane, E.M.
    Hughes, M.W.
    show all
    Abstract

    Abstract. Transportation infrastructure is crucial to the operation of society, particularly during post-event response and recovery. Transportation assets, such as roads and bridges, can be exposed to tsunami impacts when near the coast. Using fragility functions in an impact assessment identifies potential tsunami effects to inform decisions on potential mitigation strategies. Such functions have not been available for transportation assets exposed to tsunami hazard in the past due to limited empirical datasets. This study provides a suite of observations on the influence of tsunami inundation depth, road-use type, culverts, inundation distance, debris and coastal topography. Fragility functions are developed for roads, considering inundation depth, road-use type, and coastal topography and, for bridges, considering only inundation depth above deck base height. Fragility functions are developed for roads and bridges through combined survey and remotely sensed data for the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Japan, and using post-event field survey data from the 2015 Illapel earthquake and tsunami, Chile. 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. The topographic setting is also shown to affect the vulnerability of transportation assets in a tsunami, with coastal plains seeing higher initial vulnerability in some instances (e.g. for state roads with up to 5 m inundation depth) but with coastal valleys (in some locations exceeding 30 m inundation depth) seeing higher asset vulnerability overall. This study represents the first peer-reviewed example of empirical road and bridge fragility functions that consider a range of damage levels. This suite of synthesised functions is applicable to a variety of exposure and attribute types for use in global tsunami impact assessments to inform resilience and mitigation strategies.

    Citation
    Williams JH, Wilson TM, Horspool N, Paulik R, Wotherspoon L, Lane EM, Hughes MW (2020). Assessing transportation vulnerability to tsunamis: utilising post-event field data from the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami, Japan, and the 2015 Illapel tsunami, Chile. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences. 20(2). 451-470.
    This citation is automatically generated and may be unreliable. Use as a guide only.
    ANZSRC Fields of Research
    40 - Engineering::4005 - Civil engineering::400512 - Transport engineering
    40 - Engineering::4010 - Engineering practice and education::401005 - Risk engineering
    40 - Engineering::4005 - Civil engineering::400508 - Infrastructure engineering and asset management
    37 - Earth sciences::3709 - Physical geography and environmental geoscience::370903 - Natural hazards

    Related items

    Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

    • Modelling residential habitability and human displacement for tsunami scenarios in Christchurch, New Zealand 

      Scheele, F.; Wilson, T.; Lane, E.M.; Crowley, K.; Hughes, M.W.; Davies, T.; Horspool, N.; Williams, J.H.; Le, L.; Uma, S.R.; Lukovic, B.; Schoenfeld, M.; Thompson, J. (Elsevier BV, 2020)
    • Performance of horizontal infrastructure in Christchurch city through the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence 

      Cubrinovski, M.; Hughes, M.; Bradley, Brendon; Noonan, J.; Hopkins, R.; McNeill, S.; English, G. (University of Canterbury. Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, 2014)
      This is an interim report from the research study performed within the NHRP Research Project “Impacts of soil liquefaction on land, buildings and buried pipe networks: geotechnical evaluation and design, Project 3: Seismic ...
    • Key factors in the liquefaction-induced damage to buildings and infrastructure in Christchurch: Preliminary findings 

      Cubrinovski, M.; Taylor, M.; Henderson, D.; Winkley, A.; Haskell, J.; Bradley, Brendon; Hughes, M.; Wotherspoon, L.; Bray, J.; O’Rourke, T. (University of Canterbury. Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, 2014)
      The paper presents preliminary findings from comprehensive research studies on the liquefaction-induced damage to buildings and infrastructure in Christchurch during the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes. It identifies ...
    Advanced Search

    Browse

    All of the RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThesis DisciplineThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThesis Discipline

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics
    • SUBMISSIONS
    • Research Outputs
    • UC Theses
    • CONTACTS
    • Send Feedback
    • +64 3 369 3853
    • ucresearchrepository@canterbury.ac.nz
    • ABOUT
    • UC Research Repository Guide
    • Copyright and Disclaimer
    • SUBMISSIONS
    • Research Outputs
    • UC Theses
    • CONTACTS
    • Send Feedback
    • +64 3 369 3853
    • ucresearchrepository@canterbury.ac.nz
    • ABOUT
    • UC Research Repository Guide
    • Copyright and Disclaimer