Water Distribution–Transportation Interface Connectivity Responding to Urban Geospatial Morphology

Abstract

Water distribution and transportation systems are geospatially colocated, forming a network of connections. This network of connections is referred to as an interface network. Investigation of interface network connectivity can help understand and minimize failure propagation from water to transportation systems. Water distribution–transportation interface networks consist of nodes, which can be either pipes or roads, and edges, which represent the geospatial colocation of a pipe and road. The purpose of this study is twofold: to topologically represent geospatial colocation by characterizing the connectivity of water distribution–transportation interface networks for multiple cities, and to identify the nodal attributes that are most predictive of a given connectivity profile. A total of forty interface networks from eight cities of varying geospatial morphology are extracted and analyzed using network analysis and machine learning. Using network analysis, we investigate whether the topological connectivity between water and transportation is consistent across different cities. Then we use a random forest model to ascertain which nodal attributes may have predictive power to identify the connectivity cluster of the city to which a node belongs. The results indicate that cities of different geospatial morphology may vary in their interface network connectivity, and the average shortest path length of a given node is the major nodal feature contributing to a given city’s interface network connectivity. These findings hold implications for urban planning and water distribution design to mitigate potential cascading failures.