The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) just awarded a research contract to the UCLA Natural Hazards Risk and Resiliency Research Center (NHR3) to study Seismic Risk Assessment of Distributed Water Infrastructure Crossing Earthquake Faults in Southern California.
In this two-year project, the NHR3 researchers will investigate seismic hazard characterization and risk quantification of distributed water systems crossing earthquake faults. NHR3 (https://www.risksciences.ucla.edu/nhr3) is a multidisciplinary and multi-campus research center with headquarters at the Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences, UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.
“Los Angeles County is heavily dependent on water transmission from outside. As such, the County is susceptible to disruption of water supply in case of natural hazards, particularly earthquakes. Therefore, it is important to quantify the seismic risk of the water infrastructure,” said Prof. Yousef Bozorgnia,
Director of NHR3, and Principal Investigator of the research project. “The issue is compounded when the water transmission system crosses a major earthquake fault, which is the subject of this research project”.
“While this project focuses on fault-crossing hazards, it will also serve as a springboard for investigating the broader seismic resilience of water distribution systems in Southern California,” said Prof. Ertugrul Taciroglu, Chairperson of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UCLA and Co-
Principal Investigator of the research project. “This is an important collaborative initiative among NHR3, UCLA, and LADWP.”
For more information about the project and its progress please visit: https://www.risksciences.ucla.edu/nhr3