Financial allocation and network recovery for interdependent wastewater treatment infrastructure: development of resilience metrics

ABSTRACT The disrupted performance of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) when facing floods can cause complications in urban systems’ functioning. Therefore, utilities need to improve the resilience of their facilities and establish asset restoration plans. The present study aims at investigating two metrics to improve the WWTP’s resilience. An attribute-based resilience metric is devised using a fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making (FMCDM) framework to attain a budget allocation proposition. A network model representing the interdependent infrastructure is also formulated to develop a performance-based metric. The network’s post-disaster behavior is simulated to obtain an asset restoration sequence (RS). The results indicate that considering imprecisions in experts’ views lowers the possibility of underestimation or overestimation of resilience improvement when allocating funds. Furthermore, prioritizing facilities’ restoration will increase WWTPs’ resilience. The proposed methodology, which is tested on Brooklyn, provides a resilient solution to some challenges in asset management and can be applicable to other coastal settings.