Research Projects

This proposal aims to design effective recovery strategies for built systems, including transportation and water distribution systems, subject to diverse threats such as hydroclimate extremes in changing climates. Natural hazards, such as flooding, disrupt critical systems like water and wastewater, transportation, power, and communications. The Periyar River Basin of Kerala experienced devastating impacts on connectivity due to sustained damages on road networks. Understanding the feedback between complex infrastructure systems and hazards is crucial, as climate and weather-related extremes are expected to become more frequent and intense in the near- and long-term future. Infrastructure resilience is defined as the ability to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions. However, several barriers prevent this, including data availability and integration, predictive tools, and interdependence. Data availability and integration are often lacking, exposing vulnerable components and disrupting the flow of goods, services, and information. Predictive tools are also lacking, making it difficult to identify effective interventions and design principles for improving and fortifying critical systems. Interdependence is also a challenge, as individual layers of infrastructure do not operate in isolation. The proposal proposes a research program focusing on regional and local scale infrastructures, building on a novel theoretical framework for networked system resilience and applying it to threats posed by meteorological and climate change-related hazards.