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Rain - Risk analysis of infrastructure networks in response to extreme weather

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  • Project Team:
    • Project Leaders: Asst Prof Brian Caulfield and Assoc. Prof. Alan O'Connor

  • Description:
    • In recent years, a variety of extreme weather events, including droughts, rain induced landslides, river floods, winter storms, wildfire, and hurricanes, have threatened and damaged many different regions across Europe and worldwide. These events can have a devastating impact on critical infrastructure systems. The RAIN vision is to develop a systematic risk management framework that explicitly considers the impacts of extreme weather events on critical infrastructure and develops a series of mitigation tools to enhance the security of the pan-European infrastructure network. This project will quantify the complex interactions between weather events and land based infrastructure systems. The output of RAIN will aid decision making in the long term, securing new robust infrastructure development and protection of existing infrastructure against changing climates and increasingly more unpredictable weather patterns. Transport, energy and telecommunications infrastructure will all be considered and risk mitigation strategies will be developed. This will be achieved through developing an operational analysis framework that considers the impact of individual hazards on specific infrastructure systems and the coupled interdependencies of critical infrastructure through robust risk and uncertainty modelling. The framework will consider cascading hazards, cascading effects and time dependent vulnerability with the ultimate objective to develop practical software tools and guidelines that provide support to European infrastructure managers in the event of an extreme weather event occurring and to minimise the impact of extreme events by developing mitigation and response strategies. RAIN will facilitate a cross-European collaborative platform, supported by the necessary tools and methodologies, where relevant stakeholders can share data, results of model simulations, and operational strategies in a seamless, efficient, and effective way. Technical and Logistic solutions will be developed to minimise the impact of these extreme events, which will include novel early warning systems, decision support tools and engineering solutions to ensure rapid reinstatement of the infrastructure network. These tools will be implemented within a novel Europe-wide operational and response strategy that will emerge from this research. The ability of this response plan to cut across borders will be guaranteed by the pan - European multi-disciplinary consortium. This project is being led by Trinity College Dublin. The project partners include: European Sever Storms Laboratory, Zilinska Univerzita V Ziline, Technische Universiteit Delft, Gavin and Doherty Geosolutions Ltd., Dragados SA, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Roughan & O' Donovan Ltd., Hellenberg International OY, Istituto di Sociologia Internazionale di Gorizia I.S.I.G, PSJ, Ilmatieteen Laitos, Youris.com, Union Fenosa Distribucion SA and Aplicaciones En Informatica Avanzada SL.

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