Development of an Ocean Hazards Classification Scheme (OHCS) for Projecting Future Scenario Vulnerability Ranking on Coastal Built Infrastructure

From many sources, we develop an ocean hazard classification scheme (OHCS) based on the collection of historical and projected ocean hazards data at 302 locations along Hawaii’s state coastal highways. The OHCS identifies ocean hazards impacting coastal built infrastructure, i.e. roadways. In the OHCS, we first rank the vulnerability of: sea level rise; waves; shoreline change; tsunami; and storm surge. Next, using our developed OHCS, provide the vulnerability ranking for all five variables combined. We find the highest OHCS to be on Molokai, the island that has the highest OHCS numbers for most of the island. For the majority of state highway locations in Hawaii, we find the highest vulnerability is from storm surge, with tsunami threat being the second largest contributor. Sea level rise should also be considered a contributor since higher sea levels contribute to more extreme storm surge and tsunami inundation. Although the OHCS is applied towards roads in our study, our method can be applied towards any coastal island-based built infrastructure vulnerability scheme. This is an important tool in planning for future construction projects or identifying which hazards to focus on in more detailed assessments, such a probabilistic risk assessment in a more localized location.

Applying cluster analysis to ranking the vulnerabilities of railway influence territory

The article considers the proprietary method of ranking the territory of the railway influence, based on the use of vulnerability matrices and application of cluster analysis, which allows optimizing the decision-making process for responding to emergencies associated with rail transport. The "point" ranking of vulnerabilities in the zone of railway influence was used for more accurate information on the events with applying the identity matrices of vulnerabilities. The partition cell is taken as a single "point". The method is based on the ranking of ecological, economic, environmental, bioresource and cultural significance of the territory by means of defining identical matrices of vulnerabilities that describe each point of the event. The partition cells were grouped into three clusters: moderately vulnerable territory, highly vulnerable territory and extremely vulnerable territory. The result of using the method was the compiling of vulnerability ranking maps.