Research Projects Critical Infrastructure Resilience for the Hampton Roads Region (2006-2008)   IDAPS - Intelligent Distributed Autonomous Power Systems (on-going)   Power Systems, Water, Transportation and Communications Lifeline Interdependencies (2005)   Critical Infrastructure Resilience in the City of Danville, Virginia (2005)   Partnership to Reduce Vulnerability to Seismic Hazards (2003-2005)   National Capital Region Critical Infrastructure Vulnerability Assessment (2003-2005)   Improving Virginia's Attractiveness for High-Technology Industries (2000-2001)   . Critical Infrastructure Resilience for the Hampton Roads Region Sponsor: Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM) Duration: November 2006 - July 2008 PI: Professor Fred Krimgold The Hampton Roads region of southeastern Virginia is, along with the National Capital Region, the most likely target for terrorist attack in the Commonwealth. Hampton Roads comprises 16 city and county jurisdictions, and is critical to national security both militarily and economically. It is the second-largest seaport on the Atlantic coast, the home of the largest complex of military bases in the world, the site of the world's largest shipbuilder of combat vessels, and home to 1.6 million people. The multiplicity of local jurisdictions and the range of Federal, Commonwealth, and private facilities in the area present a complex set of management and policy issues that need to be addressed for evaluation and enhancement of regional security and resilience. In particular, the jurisdictions and special facilities of the Hampton Roads region are served by interdependent networks of critical infrastructure networks. The combination of publicly and investor-owned infrastructure organizations further complicates the analysis and coordination of regional security and service reliability. Threats to the security of Hampton Roads include natural hazards such as hurricanes and ice storms, biological hazards such as pandemic disease, and terrorist hazards such as radiological and cyber attack. Selected threat scenarios will be modeled for the region and their impacts will be assessed in the contexts of individual jurisdictions, infrastructure organizations, military organizations, and the region. Policy and investment options will be developed and evaluated as input to a decision support system to reduce risk and increase regional resilience. Project Objectives To begin to address the potential impacts related to natural, technical and possible terrorist incidents in this critical multi-jurisdiction region of the Commonwealth, a collaborative team from three Virginia universities led by Virginia Tech will evaluate the resilience of specific critical infrastructures in the Hampton Roads region. This project will take advantage of proven capabilities of the Virginia Tech Disaster Risk Reduction Program (DRR), the Virginia Modeling, Simulation and Analysis Center (VMASC) of Old Dominion University and the Center for Risk Management of Engineering Systems (CRMES) at the University of Virginia. The project will benefit from the experience gained and findings from studies conducted by DRR personnel who have been conducting security- and infrastructure-related studies for the past six years, including the two recently completed studies: "National Capital Region - Critical Infrastructure Project," and the Danville "Infrastructure Resilience Assessment Project". The Objectives of the Hampton Roads project include: Examine the vulnerabilities and interdependencies of critical infrastructure facilities and resources of the Hampton-Roads region. Evaluate the existing resilience to selected disaster, technical, and terrorist risks related to the identified vulnerabilities. Assess the existing gaps in the resilience, preparedness, and response capabilities for selected man-made and natural hazard scenarios. Examine military and civilian infrastructure interdependencies in relation to regional resilience, preparedness, and response. Assess the economic and social impacts from selected man-made and natural hazards on regional infrastructure sectors on the economy due to interdependencies. Develop prioritization using risk, cost, and benefit tradeoffs for investments to increase resilience, preparedness, and response capabilities. Document the Hampton Roads region case study protocol as a model for other regions in the Commonwealth of Virginia.   Intelligent Distributed Autonomous Power Systems (IDAPS) PI: Professor Saifur Rahman and Manisa Pipattanasomporn The electric power system is an enabling infrastructure that supports the operation of other critical infrastructures and thus the economic well-being of a nation. It is, therefore, very important to design for resiliency and autonomous reconfigurability in the electric power grid to guard against man-made and natural disasters. One way to assure such self-healing characteristics in an electric power system is to design for small and autonomous subsets of the larger grid. Intelligent Distributed Autonomous Power System (IDAPS) represents an innovative means to interconnect distributed energy resources (DERs) in a specialized IDAPS microgrid. The IDAPS microgrid aims at intelligently managing customer-owned DERs such that these assets can be shared in an autonomous grid both during normal and outage operations. Customer-owned DERs may include solar cells, wind turbines, fuel cells, electric vehicles, microturbines, connected to a low-voltage distribution circuit.The proposed concept is expected to make significant contributions during emergency conditions, as well as creating a new market for electricity transaction among customers. [Download IDAPS concept paper] Power Systems, Water, Transportation and Communications Lifeline Interdependencies Sponsor: American Lifelines Alliance Duration: January - November 2005 PI: Professor Fred Krimgold This project investigated and documented case-history data on the role of interdependencies among utility and transportation lifelines in post-hurricane response in Florida after Hurricanes Charlie, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne in August-September 2004. The geographic area of the study was Orlando, Florida, and surrounding communities in Orange County, Florida. The purpose of the project was to investigate how the performance of each utility and transportation system was affected by disruption of services from the four critical lifelines, and to identify initial lessons learned for improving lifeline system serviceability and reliability during future hurricanes. The study also was intended to provide recommendations for further data compilation and assessment activities that would eventually lead to industry guidance for enabling utility and transportation lifeline owners and operators to better account for lifeline interdependencies during future hurricanes. [Download Draft Report]   Critical Infrastructure Resilience in the City of Danville, Virginia Sponsor: Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM) Duration: August - November 2005 PI: Professor Fred Krimgold This scope of this project was to examine the present state of infrastructure resilience and identify opportunities to upgrade infrastructure systems in the City of Danville, Virginia. Existing critical infrastructures were evaluated with respect to the City's vulnerabilities, interdependencies and potential for enhanced resilience. The objectives of the project were: Evaluating specific critical infrastructures, namely energy, communications, transportation, water, and emergency services, in the City of Danville and its surrounding area; Identifing specific dependencies and interdependencies within and among the City's infrastructures and critical product or service suppliers to the City, with particular attention to possible system failure modes and vulnerabilities; Investigating the level of infrastructure resiliency both within and among the infrastructures of interest in the City and surrounding region, as appropriate; Identifing examples of mitigation actions to reduce vulnerabilities and increase infrastructure system resilience. Download Summary and Posters: Enhancing Resilience in Danville, Virginia: Project Summary (PDF 66.4KB) Enhancing Resilience in Danville, Virginia: Project Design (PDF 763 KB) Emergency Generators: A "Weak Link" in Community Disaster Recovery (PDF 388KB)   Partnership to Reduce Vulnerability to Seismic Hazards Sponsor: US Agency for International Development Duration: 2003-2005 (to be extended from 2005) PI: Professor Saifur Rahman, Co-PI: Professor Fred Krimgold Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in collaboration with the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) has established a joint program called, the Virginia Tech- BUET Partnership to Reduce Vulnerability to Seismic Hazards. The Virginia Tech team includes the Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering (CUREE) and The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI). The initial period of the planned partnership is two years beginning in October 2003. The primary activities of the partnership includes: a human resources capability assessment in Bangladesh, training for professionals related to earthquake hazard reduction, development of tools and programs for seismic vulnerability assessment for buildings in urban areas, and establishment of regional and US institutional linkages for the National Center for Earthquake Engineering at BUET. . National Capital Region Critical Infrastructure Vulnerability Assessment Sponsor: Government of the District of Columbia Duration: 2003-2005 PI: Professor Fred Krimgold The scope of the project includes eight critical infrastructures - emergency services, water, energy, health services, telecommunications, banking and finance, transportation, and postal and shipping. The project has two overarching objectives: (1) To assist owners and operators of critical infrastructures to achieve the highest level of cost-effective security; and (2) To assist regional decision-makers to identify and assess vulnerabilities due to interdependencies among critical infrastructures and develop cost-effective mitigation options. The protection in each of the eight infrastructures in the region is being addressed to identify needs and options for tools, incentives and governance to assist infrastructure owners and operators to make the required decisions and investments to secure their assets and systems. To do this, metrics and analytical models to assess vulnerabilities due to interdependencies and associated benefits and costs will be specified. The Consortium work with regional stakeholders to develop and conduct table-top exercises to increase awareness of interdependencies and to foster communications among sectors; and assist in the development of planning, decision-making, and coordination mechanisms for regional use by the public, private and non-profit sectors. [Download Final Report, Volume 2: Energy Sector] . Improving Virginia's Attractiveness for High-Technology Industries Sponsor: Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology Duration: 2000-2001 PI: Professor Saifur Rahman and John Bigger Technology industries are growing in importance in Virginia. Today, there are over 4,300 technology firms in the Commonwealth that employ over 368,000 people whose total earnings are $19.4 billion. Virginia is also an increasingly preferred location for high-technology firms. Since these high-technology firms require premium-quality electric power around the clock, individuals in industry, academia, and government at all levels are asking a critical question: How can Virginia continue to improve its already competitive position in attracting high-technology industries by meeting energy infrastructure challenges without negatively impacting its citizens or degrading the quality of our environment? To begin to address this question and develop this perspective, Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology funded the Advanced Research Institute (ARI) to identify issues that may impact Virginia's capability to continue to attract high-technology firms in the future. This one-year effort began in September 2000. The overall objectives of this CIT-funded study were: 1) to identify and characterize infrastructure challenges and associated environmental concerns associated with providing the high security, reliability, and quality power needed by mission-critical facilities in Virginia's high-tech industry both today and in the future, and 2) to provide information regarding the needs of high technology firms to economic development organizations throughout Virginia to enhance their ability to identify sites for interested firms. Download [Final Report]