A New Quantitative Method for Studying the Vulnerability of Civil Aviation Network System to Spatially Localized Hazards
Int J Disaster Risk Sci
A New Quantitative Method for Studying the Vulnerability of Civil Aviation Network System to Spatially Localized Hazards
Hang Li 0 1 2 3
Xiao-Bing Hu 0 1 2 3
Xiaomei Guo 0 1 2 3
Zhen Xu 0 1 2 3
P. H. A. J. M. van Gelder 0 1 2 3
0 Faculty of Technology , Policy and Management , Delft University of Technology , Delft , The Netherlands
1 State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University , Beijing 100875 , China
2 Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management, Beijing Normal University , Beijing 100875 , China
3 School of Engineering, University of Warwick , Coventry , UK
As an important infrastructure system, civil aviation network system can be severely affected by natural hazards. Although a natural hazard is usually local, its impact, through the network topology, can become global. Inspired by Wilkinson's work in 2012, this article proposes a new quantitative spatial vulnerability model for network systems, which emphasizes the spreading impact of spatially localized hazards on these systems. This model considers hazard location and area covered by a hazard, and spatially spreading impact of the hazard (including direct impact and indirect impact through network topology) and proposes an absolute spatial vulnerability index and a relative spatial vulnerability index to reflect the vulnerability of a network system to local hazards. The model is then applied to study the spatial vulnerability of the Chinese civil aviation network system. The simulation results show that (1) the proposed model is effective and useful to study spatial vulnerability of civil aviation network systems as the results well explain the general situation of the Chinese civil aviation system; and (2) the Chinese civil aviation network system is highly vulnerable to local hazards when indirect impacts through network connections are considered.
Civil aviation; Network system localized hazards; Vulnerability; Spatially
1 Introduction
Civil aviation, as an advanced transportation mode, is not
only closely linked with our daily life, but also significantly
important for the economic development of countries and
regions. According to the 2013 Annual Report of the
International Civil Aviation Organization Council
(ICAO
2014)
, the number of world air passengers reached 3.1
billion, air freight (expressed as freight ton-kilometer
performed) rose to approximately 49.3 million tons, and net
profit of the world air transport reached USD 181 billion in
2013. As an important sector of the economy, civil aviation
system has become a crucial infrastructure system
supporting the modernization of economies and societies and
promoting the development of various other related
industries, such as tourism, trade, and logistics. However,
in the context of global climate change, the sustainable
development of the world civil aviation industry is facing
increasingly more severe challenges imposed by frequent
natural hazards, especially meteorological hazards.
Generally, these hazards are spatially restricted, so we use the
term ‘‘spatially localized hazards’’ in this article.
Spatially localized hazards, such as torrential rain,
typhoon, snowstorm, and dust storm, may directly result in
closure of airports and routes, damage airport and en-route
navigation equipment/facilities, cause severe flight delays,
and lead to aviation accidents and even catastrophes. For
example, the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano
in Iceland resulted in the closures of European airports and
routes at a very large scale, causing more than 10 million
passenger delays
(Mazzocchi et al. 2010)
. Civil aviation
system, as a network system, may be globally influenced
by such spatially localized hazards, as negative effects of
the hazards can spread along flight routes between airports
in the system. For example, as shown in Fig. 1, assuming a
local hazard happens in a simplified civil aviation network
system, where Airport 1 is directly affected by the hazard.
As Airport 2 has flights from/to Airport 1, it will be
disturbed indirectly by the hazard because flights between
Airport 2 and Airport 1 may not take off on time or be
forced to cancel. Although Airport 3 has no direct flights
from/to Airport 1, it may also be impacted indirectly
because Airport 3 has flights from/to Airport 2, which are
likely to be affected by the delays or cancelation of flights
between Airport 1 and Airport 2. Finally, the whole system
is affected by the hazard. Therefore, it is important to study
the impacts of local hazards on civil aviation network
system.
Vulnerability is an important concept to assess the
performance of a system in the presence of hazards. At
present, studies on the vulnerability of civil aviation
network system are concentrated in the field of system
science. Researchers mainly apply complex network theories
to study the performances and characteristics of different
network topologies (...truncated)