1. Introduction
Storm sewer drainage systems play a crucial role in preventing flooding by diverting excessive rain and groundwater that runs off impervious surfaces such as roofs, parking lots, sidewalks, and paved streets into nearby waterways through a network of drains and underground pipes [
1]. These systems vary in design, ranging from simple residential drainage to complex municipal drains. It is important to manage the stormwater infrastructure system effectively as these infrastructures can be impacted severely due to natural hazards [
2]. The potential natural hazards and their consequences on stormwater pipelines are mentioned in
Table 1 [
3].
During earthquakes, pipelines can be impacted in various ways, with the most common being shear forces resulting from fault movement and joint disconnection forces due to ground dislocation and liquefaction [
4]. The ISO 16134 International Standard for Earthquake & Seismic Resilience recognizes ductile iron as the most resilient pipe material due to its high tensile strength, joint strength, and capacity to withstand deflection and strain. The development of new Earthquake Resistant Ductile Iron Pipe (ERDIP) systems that incorporate advanced connections with high axial ranges has further enhanced the resilience of pipelines to higher levels of seismic activity [
3]. Pipeline failures during earthquakes are more widespread and frequent than commonly acknowledged and can seriously hinder emergency response efforts in some cases [
5]. Earthquake damage to pipelines can result in an immediate breach or cause stress to accumulate at specific points along the line, leading to a breach days or even weeks after the earthquake, despite the surface appearing stable [
6]. Therefore, it is vital to develop a resilient stormwater infrastructure system.
Bruneau et al. [
7] and Cimellaro et al. [
8] defined physical and social systems’ resiliency with four “R”, which are robustness, redundancy, resourcefulness, and rapidity. The ability of infrastructure to withstand stress and continue functioning without losing critical functions is known as robustness, which is a crucial component of resilience. This means that a network’s ability to function even after being exposed to external pressures or disruptions is an important aspect of its robustness. Redundancy allows for alternative options, decisions, and substitutions within a system to provide different recovery options in the event of a disaster. Resourcefulness refers to the capacity to manage the aftermath of a disaster on the system, such as mobilizing essential workers, operations, and materials for rapid recovery. Rapidity measures how quickly the network can be repaired and restored to its original function after a hazard, and is a critical component of resilience [
9].
In this context, it is important to note that robustness is a subset of reliability, whereas resourcefulness, rapidity, and redundancy are subsets of recovery. As a result, this study considers reliability and recovery as the primary factors for evaluating resilience [
10]. The life cycle of an infrastructure can be represented in
Figure 1, which displays its performance before, during, and after a hazard. This diagram provides an overview of the infrastructure’s service life and how it performs in the event of a significant failure or disaster.
Figure 1 presents the infrastructure system’s performance. The performance of an infrastructure system gradually deteriorates over time due to its usage. In the event of a disaster, there is a sudden decline in performance, referred to as the failure path or loss, which is determined by the type of catastrophe and the system’s robustness. The recovery time and path, on the other hand, are dependent on the type of infrastructure system and the availability of resources. It is uncertain how the failure and recovery path will unfold [
10].
Since the concept of resilience has been introduced in stormwater systems, resilience measures have been recognized as crucial in the decision-making process for developing strategies to prepare for, respond to, and recover from unexpected disruptive events affecting water infrastructure systems. Conducting a stormwater resilience analysis can offer several benefits, including identifying and comparing the resilience of systems under different organizational, economic, environmental, and social conditions; identifying vulnerable areas that require improvement through resilience strategies; and enhancing clarity in the design of infrastructure systems [
11,
12].
Therefore, the main research aim of this study is to develop a stormwater pipe resilience model against earthquakes to improve the management of the stormwater pipelines. The specific highlighted objectives and contributions of this study are as follows:
To create a stormwater pipeline resilience assessment model considering safety and recovery criteria.
To apply the Bayesian belief network (BBN) method for robust modeling of the causal relationship between the resilience indicators.
To evaluate recovery and reliability factors of stormwater pipe infrastructure system and evaluate the sensitivities for informed decision making on pipeline management.
The remainder of this study is organized into four sections. The literature is reviewed in
Section 2.
Section 3 shows the research methods that have been used in this study. Data collection is explained in
Section 4. In the last chapter, which is
Section 5, the development of the BBN model in this study is shown.
2. Literature Review
The first section of this piece of writing discusses the various methods used to determine infrastructure resiliency, while the second section presents a literature review related to the resilience of water pipe infrastructure.
2.1. Infrastructure Resilience Methodology
In various studies, different methodologies have been employed to investigate infrastructure resilience. For instance, Murdock et al. [
13] utilized a response curve approach to assess the resilience of critical infrastructure to flooding. Meanwhile, Muller [
14] proposed a fuzzy-rule-based approach to select alternative architectures in an interconnected infrastructure system to enhance overall system resilience. This method takes into account the most important factors in decision making for resilience strategies. The study concluded by proposing a method based on existing resilience architecting strategies that combine essential system aspects using fuzzy memberships and fuzzy rule sets.
Rehak et al. [
15] proposed a method called the Critical Infrastructure Elements Resilience Assessment (CIERA) for assessing the resilience of critical infrastructure elements. The approach involves a statistical evaluation of the elements’ robustness, ability to recover from disruptive events, and capacity to adapt to past experiences. This method includes assessing both technical and organizational resilience and identifying weaknesses that need to be addressed to improve resilience. In another study, Yuan et al. [
16] emphasized the importance of critical infrastructures, such as road networks, in providing transportation to hospitals and shelters during disasters. They proposed an Internet of People-enabled framework to evaluate the performance failure of road networks during disasters and provide a performance failure rate as a measure of road network resilience.
2.2. Water Pipe Infrastructure Resilience
The importance of resilience in water infrastructure systems is emphasized by identifying its critical features, such as being prepared for hazardous situations and considering its interdependence with the electrical infrastructure. This is done to enable water infrastructure system managers to improve the system’s resilience. Matthews [
17] conducted research on this topic, which included describing and quantifying critical characteristics of water infrastructure system resilience, such as redundancy in water systems and storage in wastewater systems. Other studies, such as those conducted by Cimellaro et al. [
18] and Ouyang and Dueñas-Osorio [
19], also emphasize the importance of understanding resilience in water infrastructure systems. The operation of water distribution systems can be disrupted by various types of hazards and disasters, whether they are natural or caused by human activity. Natural hazards are physical events that can occur quickly or slowly over time. These hazards are categorized into different types as shown in
Table 2 [
20]. In the following subsections, the literature related to hazards for water infrastructure is shown in detail.
2.3. Natural Hazards
Quitana et al. [
21] conducted research on the ability of drinking water systems to withstand natural hazards, focusing on the resilience of critical infrastructure. Stip et al. [
22] carried out a study aimed at informing water system managers about the importance of, and strategies for, increasing the resilience of water service infrastructure to natural hazards and climate risks. Stip et al. [
22] also mentioned that, in selecting resilience measures, water systems managers have to take into account six principles and incorporate the decision-making concept under deep uncertainty.
2.3.1. Earthquake
Developed countries possess better protection against catastrophic disasters than developing countries due to their abundance of financial and technological resources, as well as their organized design codes and administration processes. Infrastructure systems in developing countries are more vulnerable to catastrophic disasters [
4,
23]. Nazarnia et al. [
23] evaluated the infrastructure resilience in developing countries by focusing on the water system in the Kathmandu Valley after the 2015 Nepalese earthquake. They created a framework for the systemic evaluation of infrastructure resilience to assess the water supply system in that area. Similarly, Mostafavi et al. [
24] studied the resilience of the water infrastructure in the Kathmandu Valley following the 2015 Nepalese earthquake using a system approach. Mostafavi et al. [
24] identified the factors and their relationships that impacted the resilience of the Kathmandu Valley water system. The research findings underscored the factors that decreased resilience in the system, including the supply–demand imbalance, aging infrastructure, and a lack of disaster management procedures.
2.3.2. Flood and Coastal
The water infrastructure in coastal areas is highly susceptible to climate-sensitive hazards such as salt intrusion, rainfall, tides, and storm surges, which can have detrimental impacts on both infrastructure and human health. In their study, Allen et al. [
25] investigated the increasing frequency, magnitude, and consequences of flooding hazards on water infrastructure and public health due to rising sea levels.
2.3.3. Weather–Climate
Falco and Webb [
26] explained that extreme weather events, including rising global temperatures and climate change, can have significant impacts on water infrastructure, leading to consequences such as disrupted clean water distribution, wastewater treatment, and stormwater control. Hossain et al. [
27] defined weather–climate-resilient water infrastructure as infrastructure capable of forecasting, adapting to, and recovering from external disruptions caused by adverse weather and climate conditions and providing necessary services. Stip et al. [
22] conducted a study to advise water system managers on strategies for enhancing the resilience of water service arrangements to natural hazards and climate risks.
2.4. Terrorist Attacks
In a society disturbed over the possibility of terrorism, the privacy and security of infrastructure data are critical. Nevertheless, the study on infrastructure security is complex in this situation because searches on real systems cannot be announced. “Virtual cities” are one potential key to this issue, and a library of these virtual cities is now under extension [
28]. Brumbelow et al. [
28] conducted a study about virtual cities for water distribution and infrastructure systems.
The reviewed studies are presented in
Table 3, covering various water infrastructure systems. However, there is a lack of literature specifically addressing the resilience of stormwater pipe infrastructure to earthquake hazards. This thesis aims to fill this gap by focusing on the resilience of stormwater pipes and their contributing factors against earthquake hazards, making it a unique contribution to the existing literature.
2.5. Research Gap
In most of the earlier analyses, the earthquake resilience of stormwater pipelines is not highlighted comprehensively, considering the safety and recovery criteria. Studying earthquake resilience of stormwater pipelines is important because with that study, most influential factors, their weights, and their importance can be determined, and executors/utility engineers can use the information to make the infrastructure more resilient against earthquake hazards. The majority of the previous studies focused primarily on water distribution systems, with very few on stormwater pipeline failure and resilience. Studying the resiliency of the stormwater system is as important as other water systems because if a stormwater pipe cracks and fails after an earthquake hazard, the extra runoff that does not soak into the ground will not go to the stormwater pipe system and will cause flooding. There were few analyses regarding the resiliency, reliability, and recovery factors of stormwater pipes, as most of the previous studies mainly focused on risks and not resiliency. In this study, the Bayesian belief network (BBN) method has been used for probabilistic modeling and the quantification of resilience for stormwater pipeline systems engineering with limited information. Furthermore, a geographic information system (GIS) tool is implemented in this research for data inventories, visualization, and evaluations.
4. Results and Discussions
Table 11 indicates five samples of stormwater pipe characteristics and corresponding resiliency. Similarly, the resiliency of the 8464 stormwater pipes of the city of Regna is defined using the developed BBN model.
Figure 7 shows the sparsity of resiliency of stormwater pipes in the city of Regina. Pipe age, material, diameter, length, and land use type are unique for each and every pipe in this model. On the other hand, constant states were considered for other factors, which were the same in the whole city. Earthquake magnitude is considered medium in the city, financial resources and approachability are considered high, degree of damage is considered medium, and structural monitoring is considered poor. As it is obvious from
Figure 7 and the data, the resiliency numbers are between 40.60 and 65.56 percent.
Figure 8 presents the resiliency of the city of Regina’s stormwater pipes. The more the color of the feature tends to be green, the more resilient it is. On the basis of
Table 6, a resiliency between 34% to 66% is considered moderate resiliency. Based on the inputs that were put, in the whole city, for medium earthquake magnitude, the resiliency is moderate for all of the stormwater pipes in the city of Regina.
5. Conclusions
This study gives a framework for assessing the city of Regina’s stormwater pipe resilience against earthquake hazards by using a BBN approach. To this end, the actual data from a stormwater pipe system of Regina in Canada have been obtained from the open data website of the city of Regina. Data have been opened and extracted through ArcGIS (ArcMap 10.5.1) software. To assess stormwater pipes’ resiliency against the earthquake hazard, finding the factors and the relationships between them is the initial priority. After determining the stormwater pipes’ resilience, three distinct performance states for each of the pipes were generated. The belief values computed through the proposed framework can indicate the potential resilience of a stormwater pipe towards earthquake hazards.
As one of the conclusions of this study, between reliability and recovery, resiliency is more sensitive to reliability than recovery. With regard to independent factors, the degree of damage factor is considered as the most sensitive factor in comparison with other factors in finding the resiliency of the stormwater pipe system of the city of Regina. Based on
Figure 8, and all the inputs that were put in the model in the whole city for a medium earthquake magnitude, the resiliency is moderate for all of the stormwater pipes in the city of Regina as the resiliency for all of the pipes is between 40.60 and 65.56 percent.
The analysis output will aid in identifying the crucial factors by assessing the resiliency of each pipe in the entire system, allowing the agency to promptly address the critical factors and improve their strength, thereby enhancing the resilience of the stormwater pipe infrastructure. Thus, the study’s results can accurately help decision makers determine the resiliency of the stormwater pipe infrastructure. The study’s findings and figures can guide the management in preparing for potential earthquake hazards and recovering from such events. By identifying the most resilient pipes, the managers can improve the resilience of other pipes to withstand future earthquake hazards.
The effectiveness of the model is limited by the accuracy of the information and opinions provided by the experts regarding the related factors and their relationships. Thus, it is recommended to establish a global network system with the collaboration of experts from earthquake-prone countries, such as Japan and Turkey, to ensure the comprehensive and accurate evaluation of the model.
For further research, the current framework for resilient stormwater pipe infrastructure can be expanded to encompass other hazards, such as droughts, floods, landslides, climate change, and tsunamis. Furthermore, a more comprehensive framework that considers vulnerability, robustness, and recovery, with more complex dependencies at the factor level, can be developed. Other mathematical theories of uncertainty, such as rough sets theory and fuzzy sets theory, could also be utilized to assess resiliency. To validate the BBN method, the simple multi-attribute rating technique (SMART) or Dubois and Prade’s method for the compound rule can be used for examining multiple criteria. Furthermore, a similar assessment can be applied to provide a consequence model for various buried infrastructures, such as oil and gas pipelines and drinking water, in future studies.