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RiskScape Multi-Hazard Infrastructure Resilience Assessment Platform

Solution Overview

This integrated modeling approach combines multi-hazard risk assessment with economic impact analysis to evaluate infrastructure resilience investments for major seismic events in Wellington.[3][5] The system links physical damage predictions with service outage mapping and socio-economic consequence modeling to quantify the benefits of infrastructure resilience improvements.[3][5] An economic impact assessment was carried out for a Mw7.5 Wellington Fault Scenario using damage modeling largely produced by RiskScape.[1]

Technical Components

RiskScape is a multi-hazard risk assessment tool developed by GNS Science and NIWA that estimates damage and direct losses for assets exposed to natural hazards.[3] This award-winning technology has been developed by GNS Science, NIWA and the Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake with software team, Catalyst.[4] To calculate risk, RiskScape requires the user to provide geospatial data about the hazard, geospatial data about assets that stand to be damaged, and consequence functions that estimate loss based on the characteristics of the hazard and assets.[4] Outputs may include the probability of building damage, infrastructure damage, injuries to people, or fatalities.[4] RiskScape is available two ways, via the online Platform and the Engine, where the Engine is standalone with users constructing their own model using their data in a RiskScape pipeline of code, and the Platform is hosted full service with custom end-to-end risk analysis solutions including models and dashboards in a cloud-based online environment.[4] RiskScape outputs of damage are used to create service outage maps, which are an input to MERIT.[3][5] MERIT is a suite of integrated, spatial decision-support tools that estimate the socio-economic consequences across sectors and wellbeings associated with disruption events.[5] MERIT runs comfortably over a 50-year time horizon, with the first 15-years calibrated against real-world data.[5]

Implementation Details

GNS Science's RiskScape and Post Disaster Cities (PDC) teams modelled and mapped infrastructure service outages and restoration after a M7.5 Wellington Fault event, and its associated perils including fault rupture, ground shaking, liquefaction, landslides, lateral spreading, and subsidence.[2] The infrastructure types included in the modelling process were road, rail, port, airport, electricity, telecommunications, potable water, wastewater, fuel, and gas.[3] MERIT was developed under the Economics of Resilient Infrastructure research programme and is being extended under Resilience to Nature's Challenges.[2] The likely scale and timeframe of infrastructure service losses under current investments were compared with that which might occur should further investments be made in infrastructure resilience.[2] In 2019, the Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake provided funding to expedite development and make the model fully probabilistic to account for the inherent uncertainty associated with modelling natural hazards.[4]

Benefits and Impacts

With the preferred programme of investments, the MERIT modelling demonstrated a multi-billion-dollar reduction in economic losses and improved community outcomes in the event of a major seismic event in Wellington.[2] The Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake are using RiskScape as a replacement for their loss modelling tool due to RiskScape's ability to model a wide range of natural perils.[4] The Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake and MBIE funded RiskScape to develop a customised risk modelling dashboard to support the response efforts to Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023.[4]

Climate Adaptation Relevance

This approach addresses multiple natural hazards including seismic events, liquefaction, landslides, and coastal hazards. In the Wellington Region risk assessment, tsunami was rated as 'Possible' likelihood with 'Catastrophic' consequence, resulting in a risk score of 15 and 'High' risk rating.[6] The system's ability to model infrastructure service disruptions and economic consequences enables evidence-based decision-making for resilience investments across multiple climate and natural hazard scenarios.

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