The Le Val Lund Lecture on Lifeline Infrastructure and Community Resilience: Disasters, Resilience and the Next Generation

Yumei Wang, PE is the 2018 Le Val Lund Award recipient from the American Society of Civil Engineers. The Le Val Lund Award for Practicing Lifeline Risk Reduction recognizes an individual for contributions to the practice of reducing risks to lifeline systems and preparing communities for natural and manmade hazards.In her talk, Yumei Wang will present a challenge to engineers and other professionals to develop new and transformative approaches for improving society’s resilience to future natural disasters. The severity and consequences of disasters caused by natural hazards are greatly affected by the functionality of critical lifeline infrastructure after the events. The resilience of critical lifeline infrastructure – related to fuel, power, water, transportation, and communications – is essential for reducing the frequency and impact of future disasters. Currently, various lifeline systems are designed and operated independently; yet many systems depend on each other to function. A single failure in one lifeline system can lead to multiple failures across multiple systems and escalate into a much larger and more complex disaster. To prevent severe critical infrastructure failures and minimize the detrimental societal effects of major and regional disasters such as a Cascadia earthquake and tsunami, we need to develop new coordinated approaches among system designers and operators to better understand, integrate, and control the delivery of services.