Exploratory Assessment of Roadway Infrastructure Adaptation to the Impacts of Sea-level Rise

Transportation agencies in coastal urban areas face a significant challenge to enhance the long-term resilience of their networks to flooding and storm surge events exacerbated by sea level rise. The problem of sea-level rise adaptation is characterized by deep uncertainty that makes it complex to assess the value of adaptation investments. To enable informed adaptation decisions, the present study created a dynamic stochastic modeling framework based on the theoretical underpinnings of complex adaptive systems that integrates: (i) stochastic simulation of sea-level rise stressors based on the data obtained from downscaled climate studies pertaining to future projections of sea-level and precipitation; (ii) dynamic modeling of roadway conditions by considering regular decay of roadways, as well as structural damages caused by storm surge events; and (iii) a decision-theoretic modeling of agency infrastructure management and adaptation processes based on cognitive psychology, bounded rationality, and regret theories. In this framework, resilience is examined based on trend changes in the network performance measures (e.g., life cycle costs and performance). The created framework and model were tested in a case study related to the road network of the city of Miami-Beach, which global assessments rank first iv among the world\u27s urban areas most exposed to sea-level rise risks. The results indicated that: (i) SLR Adaptation investment and life cycle costs of roadway infrastructure are negatively correlated. In addition, it was shown that the sensitivity of network’s life cycle cost to actual sea-level rise scenario decreases when adaptation investment increases. These finding emphasize the importance of proactive improvement of the network resilience to alleviate the long-term costs of sea-level rise. (ii) When funding is sufficient for all required adaptation actions, mid-term adaptation planning yields lower life cycle cost. When funding is insufficient, aggregated investment in long-term adaptation planning intervals yields lower network LCC. These findings imply that different adaptation planning approaches should be taken for different levels of adaptation investment. (iii) The agency’s perception of SLR and risk attitude do not have significant effect on life cycle cost of roadway networks. Hence, implementation of adaptation action based on any perception of sea-level rise and risk attitude can significantly reduce the life cycle costs of roadway networks under the impacts of SLR. (iv) The devised performance target has negative correlation with life cycle cost of a roadway network affected by SLR impacts. Therefore, compromising the network performance condition will never result in lower life cycle costs

Modeling Occupant-Building-Appliance Interaction for Energy Waste Analysis

AbstractThe objective of this paper is to discover the emergent energy performance and determinants of energy waste in buildings. Electricity consumption in the U.S. attributes to 73% of energy waste in buildings and much of this waste is due to improper design, operation, and use of appliances. In particular, the operation or use phase of buildings and the way occupants behave significantly contribute to energy waste. Understanding the determinants of energy waste during the operation phase of buildings is a challenging task due to the complex interactions between the occupants, building units, and appliances. To decode these complex interactions and facilitate a better understanding of the determinants of energy waste, a simulation approach is used in this study. An agent-based simulation model was developed to capture the diverse attributes and dynamic behaviors of building occupants at the interface of human-building-appliance interactions. The application of the proposed model is demonstrated in a case study. Using simulation experiments, the interactions between occupant, building unit and appliance on energy consumption were investigated. The simulation model also was used for estimating determinants of energy waste. In addition, the simulation model includes a visualization interface that facilitates communication of strategies between the buildings users and facility managers. The results will highlight the significant attributes and effective strategies for energy waste reduction at the interface of human-building-appliance interactions. This information has potentially significant implications for building designers, facility managers, and users through a better understanding of emergent energy performance of buildings

Assessment of network-level environmental sustainability in infrastructure systems using service and performance adjusted life cycle analysis

Managing environmental impacts of civil infrastructure systems is critical for fostering sustainable development. However, despite the growing body of literature, an integrated methodology that captures the specific traits of infrastructure systems for a network-level environmental impact assessment is still missing. The objective of this paper is to propose a novel methodology [called Service and Performance Adjusted Life Cycle Assessment (SPA-LCA)] for addressing the limitations of the traditional LCA in environmental assessment of infrastructure networks. The SPA-LCA methodology adopts a service-based accounting approach to enable aggregation of the impacts pertaining to assets with different functions and service life expectancies at the network level. In the proposed SPA-LCA methodology, first, through conducting traditional asset-level LCA, life cycle inventories for the assets are determined. Second, the life cycle inventories are disaggregated to performance-sensitive and none-sensitive impacts. Then, using a hybrid mathematical/agent-based simulation model, the levels of service and performance are simulated for different assets in the network across the analysis horizon. Finally, the environmental impacts are determined for each year based on the levels of service and performance. The application of the proposed SPA-LCA method is demonstrated in environmental assessment of a road network. The results highlight the capabilities of SPA-LCA in providing better insight regarding environmental performance of infrastructure networksNon UBCUnreviewedFacultyOthe

A review of the current knowledge and practice related to project progress and performance assessment

Assessment of true project progress and performance is of critical importance in the successful delivery of construction projects. Major challenges related to measuring project progress and performance are the lack of consistent, reliable, and objective metrics and indicators and the lack of appropriate interpretation of these data for establishing suitable corrective action plans. The objective of this paper is to provide a review of existing applied knowledge and practices pertaining to methods, metrics and indicators for progress measurement, performance assessment and forecasting, as well as performance influencing factors, evaluating the shortcomings of the current approaches, and providing recommendations for improvement. The findings of this paper are primarily based on a comprehensive literature review and limited discussions with industry experts in the following areas: (1) methods and metrics used for progress measurement, (2) metrics and indicators used for performance assessment and forecasting, and (3) other metrics that can influence project progress and performance (e.g., risk, safety, and quality). Several industry and academic publications are reviewed including the reports from the Construction Industry Institute (CII), guidelines developed by professional organizations (e.g. Project Management Institute, Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International), and scholarly publications. Industry experts serving on the CII research team (RT-322) also provide their insights. Based on the extensive review of the relevant literature, this paper identifies limitations of various measures, metrics and indicators across different project control levels. A framework depicting the current project control process is provided along with a gap analysis related to the problems associated with this approach.Non UBCUnreviewedFacult