🤖 AI Summary
This study addresses the lack of a unified framework for assessing the economic impacts of multiple hazards on the U.S. high-voltage transmission network, as existing risk assessments typically analyze disasters in isolation. The authors develop the first multi-hazard risk assessment system that integrates hazard characteristics, grid vulnerability, and macroeconomic propagation, covering nine individual hazards and a compound ice storm–high wind scenario, with space weather incorporated for the first time on an equal quantitative footing with terrestrial hazards. Leveraging national disaster data, a detailed power grid model comprising over 13,000 transmission lines and 10,000 substations, probabilistic failure analysis, and input-output modeling, the study quantifies daily expected losses: tropical cyclones cause the highest direct damage ($137 million/day), while tornadoes trigger the largest downstream economic losses ($4.93 billion/day). The compound event affects 237 million people and results in $85.16 billion/day in lost economic output.
📝 Abstract
Modern economies depend critically on high-voltage power transmission networks. Yet this infrastructure is routinely disrupted by natural hazards ranging from earthquakes and floods to tornadoes and geomagnetic storms. Risk assessments have historically addressed hazards in isolation, leaving no common basis for comparing economic impacts across the full hazard portfolio. This study addresses this gap by developing an integrated framework linking hazard characterization, fragility modeling, and macroeconomic impact propagation. The framework is applied consistently across nine primary hazards and one compound freezing rain and wind gust hazard. Using national hazard datasets and a US high-voltage transmission network of over 13,000 line segments and 10,000 substations, we derive failure probabilities, expected damage, affected population, and downstream economic output losses. Among individual hazards, tropical cyclone wind produces the largest expected daily damage at $137 M/day, followed by lightning at $87 M/day, earthquake at $47 M/day, flood at $46 M/day, tornado at $42 M/day, and landslide at $34 M/day. Downstream economic output losses are largest for tornado at $4.93 B/day, followed by flood at $3.59 B/day and earthquake at $3.02 B/day. A 250-year geomagnetic storm produces $2.07 B/day, placing space weather within the range of major terrestrial hazards. The compound freezing rain and wind gust scenario produces the largest stress-test disruption, affecting 237.4 M people and yielding a modeled downstream output loss of $85.16 B/day. These results should be interpreted as first-order bounding estimates, with the compound scenario representing an upper-bound stress test. Overall, the framework establishes a consistent baseline for prioritizing investments in transmission network resilience.