🇬🇧Application of Bayesian Networks for Disruption Assessment of School Systems

Ahsana Parammal Vatteri, Chair on Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilient Engineering

Presented at the 2023 BayesiaLab Spring Conference.

Abstract

Natural hazards such as floods and earthquakes pose a significant risk to the lives and livelihood of people living in exposed regions and affect the continuation of education of students, which is a fundamental right. Yearly flood events with low inundation depths may not cause structural damage, however, resulting material degradation contributes to higher vulnerability to subsequent seismic events. This combined effect of flood and seismic hazards, along with other functional losses, ultimately results in disruption to education delivery. The socio-economic condition of the users-community also plays a role in the extent of such disruption. This problem demands consideration of a large number of dimensions to estimate the impact on the school system infrastructure in a locality. A Bayesian network (BN) model is proposed to handle the qualitative and quantitative nature of these variables, representing multiple schools in a locality as a system. Three factors are considered to contribute to the system disruption, namely, schools’ physical functionality loss from damage to infrastructure, accessibility and change of use, and social vulnerability. The impact is quantified through the probability of the system being in various states of disruption, which can support decision-making and strategic planning in the face of multiple hazards.

Presentation Video

About the Presenter

Ahsana Parammal Vatteri is a research fellow on the UNESCO Chair on Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilient Engineering, chaired by Prof. Dina D’Ayala at UCL. She works in the EPICentre research group in the field of earthquake and multi-hazard engineering and the application of Bayesian Networks for system resilience problems. She focuses on the confined masonry typology of buildings, especially school buildings, and the resilience of education infrastructure. Her other engagements include consultancy projects on seismic-safety assessment of schools for DFID UK, the 2020 EEFIT Aegean Earthquake and Tsunami reconnaissance mission, modified taxonomy for confined masonry school buildings for GPSS project for the World Bank, SECED Young Members Subcommittee, etc.