Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Risk Analysis
Nuclear Winter Could Sever Urban Water Access Across the Northern Hemisphere
Published: 2025-04-03
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Risk Analysis, Water Resource Management
The continuous functioning of the underground water supply networks is essential for many aspects of modern civilization. Therefore, it is essential to keep such critical infrastructure safe from disasters. However, existing risk assessment studies often assume relatively stable climate conditions. Abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios, such as those caused by a nuclear war, a large volcanic [...]
Catastrophic “Hyperclustering” and Recurrent Losses: Diagnosing U.S. Flood Insurance Insolvency Triggers
Published: 2025-03-28
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Studies, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Risk Analysis, Systems Engineering
Although a cornerstone of U.S. flood risk preparedness since 1968, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), is burdened by insolvency. Despite pricing and risk assessment reforms, systemic failures persist, resulting in accumulation of billions in federal debt. This study presents an interdisciplinary framework integrating qualitative synthesis, unsupervised machine learning, and game theory [...]
City-Scale Digital Twin Framework for Flood Impact Analysis: Integrating Urban Infrastructure and Real-time Data Analytics
Published: 2025-03-17
Subjects: Computer Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Risk Analysis, Transportation Engineering
Urban areas are increasingly vulnerable to flooding due to climate change and rapid urbanization. Traditional mapping and decision-support tools lack the capability to integrate real-time data or analyze cascading disruptions across interconnected urban systems. Digital twins offer a promising solution by enabling real-time monitoring, simulation, and optimization of urban environments. This [...]
Understanding Flood Risk in Public Transit Systems: Insights from Accessibility and Vulnerability Analysis in Iowa
Published: 2025-03-14
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Engineering, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Risk Analysis, Spatial Science, Transportation Engineering
Flooding is a major challenge for urban transportation systems, hindering access to essential services and jobs, especially for vulnerable populations. This study examines the impact of large flood extents on public transportation in Johnson and Linn counties, Iowa, United States, focusing on flood-prone bus routes, reduced service frequency, and access to job locations. Using Geographic [...]
Beyond Single Hazard Framework: Multi-Hazard Worst Case Scenarios from Ensemble Tropical Cyclone Forecasts
Published: 2025-02-21
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Hydrology, Meteorology, Oceanography, Risk Analysis
Ensemble forecasting is a powerful tool for supporting informed decision-making in managing multi-hazard risks associated with tropical cyclones (TCs). Although TC ensemble forecasts are widely used in operational numerical weather prediction systems, their potential for disaster prediction and management has not been fully exploited. Here we propose a novel, efficient, and practical method to [...]
AI-Driven Decision-Making for Water Resources Planning and Hazard Mitigation Using Automated Multi Agents
Published: 2024-12-27
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Computational Engineering, Computer and Systems Architecture, Computer Engineering, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Education, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, Higher Education, Hydraulic Engineering, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Risk Analysis, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Systems Engineering, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Transportation Engineering
This project simulates the Multi-Hazard Tournament (MHT) framework, a decision support system designed for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, using AI agents to enhance decisionmaking processes for flood mitigation and water resource management. The objective of the framework is to develop optimal strategies for protecting water resources, habitats, and communities within a defined budget. The [...]
Global industrial disruption following nuclear war
Published: 2024-12-05
Subjects: Agriculture, International and Area Studies, Other Geography, Risk Analysis
Nuclear war poses catastrophic risks not only through its immediate effects and potential nuclear winter, but also through the disruption of industrial production on which modern civilization depends. In this study we estimate the reduction in global industrial output following a US-Russia nuclear war, as well as a more limited India-Pakistan exchange, by combining geospatial analysis with [...]
Exposure to compound climate hazards transmitted via global agricultural trade networks
Published: 2024-11-15
Subjects: Agriculture, Climate, Environmental Studies, Risk Analysis
Compound climate hazards, such as co-occurring temperature and precipitation extremes, substantially impact people and ecosystems. Internal climate variability combines with the forced global warming response to determine both the magnitude and spatial distribution of these events, and their consequences can propagate from one country to another via many pathways. We examine how exposure to [...]
Flooding, nonlinear dynamics and Jensen’s inequality: Analyzing the damping and amplification of inundation extent with river discharge nonstationarity
Published: 2024-11-13
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Hydrology, Risk Analysis
Flood Resilience Assessment of Interconnected Critical Infrastructures
Published: 2024-11-07
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Risk Analysis, Systems Engineering, Water Resource Management
Undertaking systemic risk assessments of critical infrastructures (CIs) is necessary to improve understanding, mitigate impacts, and increase resilience to cascading effects of intensifying hydrometeorological hazards. This paper presents a novel quantitative approach for simulating local physical interdependencies between multiple infrastructure sectors that may be disrupted by floods. [...]
Resilient foods for preventing global famine: a review of food supply interventions for global catastrophic food shocks including nuclear winter and infrastructure collapse
Published: 2024-09-12
Subjects: Agricultural Science, Agriculture, Animal Sciences, Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Chemical Engineering, Engineering, Food Science, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences, Risk Analysis
Global catastrophic threats to the food system upon which human society depends are numerous. A nuclear war or volcanic eruption could collapse agricultural yields by inhibiting crop growth. Nuclear electromagnetic pulses or extreme pandemics could disrupt industry and mass-scale food supply by unprecedented levels. Global food storage is limited. What can be done? This article presents the state [...]
Frictional Properties of Simulated Fault Gouges subject to Normal Stress Oscillation and Implications for Induced Seismicity
Published: 2024-08-24
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Risk Analysis
Under critical conditions where experimental fault slip exhibits self-sustained oscillation, effects of normal stress oscillation (NSO) on fault strength and stability remain poorly understood, as do potential effects of NSO on natural and induced seismicity. In this study, we employed double direct shear testing to investigate the frictional behavior of a synthetic, slightly velocity-weakening [...]
Rapid Fault Leakage Modeling for CO2 Storage in Saline Aquifers
Published: 2024-08-12
Subjects: Chemical Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geology, Petroleum Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis
Simulating the fluid flow along fault zones at different scales is essential for predicting the CO2 leakage and containment during injection and storage. However, this can be challenging, especially in the early stages of a storage project when knowledge of the reservoir and caprock is limited and the cost of obtaining the relevant data is high. This study proposes a tool for fast screening of [...]
Scenario Development for Safety Assessment in Deep Geologic Disposal of High-Level Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel: A Review
Published: 2024-07-30
Subjects: Risk Analysis
Radiation and radioactive substances result in the production of radioactive wastes which require safe management and disposal to avoid risks to human health and the environment. To ensure permanent safe disposal the performance of a deep geological repository for radioactive waste is assessed against internationally agreed risk-based standards. Assessing post-closure safety of the future [...]
Amplifying Exploration of Regional Climate Risks: Clustering Future Projections on Regionally Relevant Impact Drivers Not Emission Scenarios
Published: 2024-07-17
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Hydrology, Meteorology, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis
Climate impacts will continue to evolve over the coming decades, requiring regions worldwide to obtain actionable climate information. Global Climate Models (GCMs) are often used to explore future conditions, but the variability of projections among GCMs complicates regional climate risk assessments. This variability in future projections is only partly explained by the often-used emission [...]