Spatial distribution of water supply reliability and critical links of water supply to crucial water consumers under an earthquake

This paper describes a process to characterize spatial distribution of water supply reliability among various consumers in a water system and proposes methods to identify critical links of water supply to crucial water consumers under an earthquake. Probabilistic performance of water supply is reflected by the probability of satisfying consumers' water demand, Damage Consequence Index (DCI) and Upgrade Benefit Index (UBI). The process is illustrated using a hypothetical water supply system, where direct Monte Carlo simulation is used for estimating the performance indices. The reliability of water supply to consumers varies spatially, depending on their respective locations in the system and system configuration. The UBI is adopted as a primary index in the identification of critical links for crucial water consumers. A pipe with a relatively large damage probability is likely to have a relatively large UBI, and hence, to be a critical link. The concept of efficient frontier is employed to identify critical links of water supply to crucial water consumers. It is found that a group of links that have the largest UBI individually do not necessarily have the largest group UBI, or be the group of critical links. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.