Modeling performance of interdependent power and water networks during urban fire events

During the last decade, basic infrastructure systems have become more complex and interdependent, both in terms of physical components and in terms of management tools. As a result, the potential for possible failures with a significant effect on society has drastically increased. Numerous past and recent events have shown that failures of an infrastructure component can propagate to other components resulting in an extensive damage and cascading failures. In this paper we study the interdependencies between the water and the electrical infrastructure components of a small city during the occurrence of a fire. We present an integrated simulation model that links the water system (hydraulic) model with the power system model. To verify the feasibility and efficiency of our model we have conducted extensive simulations using a (synthetic) virtual city Micropolis as a testbed. Our results show that the developed model is computationally efficient and can be used for evaluating the behavior of complex systems during natural disasters.