RAPID: Infrastructure, Communication, and Decision-Making During Rapid-Onset Flooding

Rapid-onset floods leave little time between warning and impact. This RAPID project captures perishable data on how infrastructure conditions, communication practices, and decision-making interact when floodwaters rise quickly — and how communities receive, interpret, and act on warnings under extreme time pressure.

Funded by NSF award # 2539481  |  Collaborators: Drs. Keri Stephens (PI), Suzanne Pierce

NNA Research: Collaborative Research: Infrastructure Interdependencies in the Arctic: Reframing the Urban-Rural Interface

Critical infrastructure services (CISs), such as water, transportation, energy, communications, public health, and waste, are essential for the well-being and economic livelihood of Alaskan communities. We do not currently understand how CISs are interconnected in Arctic communities; however, we do know that these interconnections are sources of both resilience and vulnerability. This project aims to architect infrastructure interdependencies within hub communities and at the interfaces between urban hubs and rural Alaska Native villages. In doing so, this work paves the way for future research by providing new empirical data and creating a set of management approaches that can help communities immediately improve their CISs.

Funded by NSF award # 2318217  |  Collaborators: Drs. Lauryn Spearing, Keri Stephens, Jane Lin

Collaborative Research: NNA Research: Capturing Indigenous Knowledge to Co-Design more Effective Operations, Maintenance and Management of Water Infrastructures

Rural water infrastructure systems in the Arctic have many key issues. They are often in remote locations that are hard to reach. The practical implication of this is that it often takes several days to bring adequate supplies and outside expertise when problems arise in the system. Therefore, to ensure continuous service in these systems, the local community and on-site operators have outsized responsibility in operating, managing, and maintaining the system. Additionally, these systems were based upon engineering knowledge that was not well-grounded in local community experience and know-how. Thus, besides having to do much of the operation, management, and maintenance on their own, they have to do so on a system with which they are unfamiliar, and whose underlying assumptions differ markedly from their own sensibilities. How then do we ensure continuous water service in such an extreme operating environment? This is the question that the researchers are hoping to address through revising water operator support material to better tie such water infrastructure systems to local know-how and resources that will better ensure more reliable and continuous water service.

Funded by NSF award # 2127353  |  Collaborators: Drs. Daniel Armanios, Lynn Katz, Suzanne Pierce

Rapid data center growth is placing unprecedented demands on energy infrastructure. This project develops a probabilistic readiness and infrastructure suitability model to assess where and when new data center load can realistically be delivered, connecting infrastructure capacity with siting and planning decisions.

Funded by the UT Austin Energy Institute  |  Collaborator: Dr. N. Lin (PI)

Reliable services depend on the people trained to deliver them. This partnership examines attrition and success in rural healthcare training programs in the U.S. and India, extending our workforce and service-delivery research from water infrastructure into health systems.

Funded by UT Austin Texas Global  |  Collaborator: Dr. F. Philips (PI)

This project develops machine learning models to forecast cost and schedule outcomes for highway construction contracts, supporting more informed, data-driven planning and letting decisions for the state highway program.

Funded by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT)  |  Collaborators: Drs. K. Kumar, Nabeel Khwaja, J. Son

SETx-UIFL: Equitable Solutions for Communities Caught Between Floods and Air Pollution

Our Urban Integrated Field Lab had the goal of addressing the following questions: Which processes and variables need to be captured in regional scale hydrological and atmospheric models so that they are representative of the conditions experienced by local communities and help inform adaptation strategies? And how can we understand the linkages between and within natural, built, and social systems in urbanized regions to better support natural and human resilience? My specific role was to assess the values of stakeholders and how these values change the portfolio of satisficing stormwater infrastructure alternatives co-designed with communities. I also measured how these values and problem definitions change throughout the co-design process.

Funded by the Department of Energy Urban Integrated Field Laboratories  |  Collaborators: Drs. Paola Passalacqua, Fernanda Leite, Katherine Lieberknecht

SAI-R: Culturally Appropriate Language and Messaging for Influencing End User Behavior During Impending Infrastructure Failures

The infrastructure supporting the public water supply is often the most vulnerable during times of disaster. Water utilities must explain to the public why conservation, boiling water, and protecting pipes are essential to avoid catastrophic infrastructure failure. Yet utilities typically lack the resources and expertise needed to effectively communicate the importance of collaborative efforts to their end-users during such critical times. One challenge is the growing number of communication channels, including social media, text messaging, and wireless emergency alerts. Another challenge is anticipating cultural differences and the need to communicate effectively with diverse populations, including Spanish-speaking and older adult populations. This project designed and tested communication strategies that utilities can use with the public during disasters. The goal was to understand system vulnerability concerns during disasters and to identify current communication practices. By focusing on effective communication with diverse populations, water utilities are in a stronger position to protect this vital infrastructure.

Funded by NSF award # 2228706  |  Collaborators: Drs. Keri Stephens, Matthew McGlone, Roselia Mendez Murillo, Sergio Castellanos

Collaborative Research: Urban Watershed Evolution — Novel Temporal Perspectives on the Hydrologic Impacts and Positive Unintended Consequences of Failing Municipal Infrastructure

Modern societies depend on rural and urban watersheds in a symbiotic relationship that requires balance among unintended anthropogenic inputs, local hydrology, and riparian ecosystem health. Municipalities are increasingly challenged to use aged and failing infrastructure to deliver a continuous supply of clean water, and to return and treat wastewater. Major consequences of leaking infrastructure for urban streams are changes in geomorphology and degraded chemical, physical, and biological conditions, collectively dubbed the ‘urban stream syndrome’. By using Sr isotopes as natural tracers, we showed that some Austin-area streams are comprised of up to 90% of tap water and wastewater (collectively “municipal water”) during base flow. A significant unknown is the fate of municipal water after it leaves the engineered system and enters the natural hydrologic system, leading to several key research questions: How does municipal water geochemically evolve once it is transmitted to the natural hydrologic system? When, and under what conditions, did infrastructure failure begin, and how has it progressed over time?

Funded by NSF award # 2055536  |  Collaborators: Drs. Jay Banner, Bryan Black

The Cost of Controversy on a Project: Incorporating Valid Stakeholders

The successful implementation and operation of energy projects is critical to ensure the world’s increasing energy demands can be met. These infrastructure projects often face challenges due to opposition from various external stakeholders during construction. Conflict between stakeholders has the potential to cause project delays, cost overruns, and damage a company’s public image. It is critical that developers anticipate potential controversy when planning projects; yet limited research exists as a point of reference. We sought to fill this gap by collecting and analyzing data about previous projects to identify stakeholders, types of controversy, and resulting consequences. Here, we modeled the consequences of controversy stemming from public opposition towards energy construction projects. We proposed a management framework to determine the potential costs and schedule delays during a project’s timeline. By anticipating potential controversy, developers are able to plan for cost and schedule impacts on their projects, engage with community members to mitigate opposition, or include additional funds and days in the project schedule to account for inevitable setbacks. Ultimately, a better understanding of the impacts of controversy will lead to more efficient energy project construction.

Funded by ENGIE

Contextual Factors that Influence Water Crisis Recovery: A Study of Macro Variables of Crisis Communication

In this research, we sought to understand recovery beyond traditional micro measures (e.g., water quality), through a macro sociocultural lens that incorporates lived experiences and technical performance. This work challenges the dominant definition of recovery in civil engineering through contributions from crisis communication and public relations, specifically from a critical cultural perspective. Drawing on the fields of civil engineering and crisis communication in public relations, we examined how the macro variables of (a) political system; (b) legal system; (c) economic development; (d) societal culture; and (e) media systems impact water system recovery.

Funded by the UT Austin Vice President for Research, Scholarship and Creative Endeavors Office through the Associate Professor Experimental (APX)  |  Collaborator: Dr. E. Ciszek

Assessing the Impact of APRIME on Industrial Sector Supply Portfolios: Chemical Industry and Data Center/Large Campus Case Studies

All too often when moving from science to practice, new technologies fail not because of the technology itself, but due to the misalignment of the organization’s priorities, growth trajectories, resources, capacity, or needs (among other reasons). Through this work, we created a framework that can be used to identify potential opportunities within an industry that satisfy technoeconomic and organizational constraints in that situational context.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy — National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI)  |  Collaborators: Drs. Lynn Katz, Lauryn Spearing

Disaster Continuity for Businesses and Communities in Rural Texas: Investigating Infrastructure, Communication, and Planning Needs

Disasters, including floods, fires, weather events, and hurricanes, are frequent in Texas. They affect both large and small businesses and highlight the vulnerabilities of infrastructural systems such as power, water, and broadband connectivity. While some disaster-recovery resources are available for businesses and communities in Texas, small, rural communities often lack the resources to plan for and respond to disasters. This project focused on the Gulf Coast region of Texas and used an interdisciplinary approach to understand the social and technical aspects of disaster-resilience efforts needed to help small businesses and communities. Tangible outcomes included local disaster resilience training kits, community asset mapping, and raising awareness around the increasing need for disaster planning.

Funded by the UT Austin IC² Institute  |  Collaborators: Drs. Keri Stephens, Sharon Strover

RAPID: Implications of Utilities Decision-Making and Communication Strategies in Urban Populations Response Under Extreme Weather Events

Through this project we investigated how local utilities develop their communication strategy plans and decision making under an extreme weather event, identifying inefficiencies in communications and decision-making approaches to enhance communications and ensure more equitable outcomes. The extreme weather events caused by the Polar Vortex in spring 2021 impacted Texas’ energy and water infrastructures, leaving millions of Texans without access to these basic services. The empirical knowledge derived from this work supports research at the intersection of disasters, utilities’ communications, and impact on households and the built environment.

Funded by NSF award # 2129801  |  Collaborators: Drs. Sergio Castellanos, Keri Stephens

RAPID/Collaborative Research: Disaster Migration and Civil Infrastructure: The Impacts of Sudden Population Influxes on Water and Sanitation Infrastructure

This project explored the impact of normative and cultural-cognitive perturbations on water and sanitation utilities caused by sudden and large population influxes. This research assessed the implications for utilities that find themselves serving transient, sometimes large populations, identifying and exploring changes in the organizational structure and processes of utilities in response to the European refugee influx — a unique opportunity to capture perishable data on the institutional impacts that sudden, disaster-triggered population increases may have on established water and sanitation utilities.

Funded by NSF award # 1624409  |  Collaborator: Dr. Jessica Kaminsky

NNA Track 2: Collaborative Research: Water Infrastructure in the Arctic: Vulnerabilities at the Intersection of Social, Natural and Physical Systems

Even when it exists, formal water infrastructure in rural Alaska often fails to provide an adequate level of service to Alaskan households and communities. Operating water infrastructure in the Arctic is particularly difficult due to the unique coupling between the engineered systems and the unusually extreme challenges from social and natural systems. This project integrated knowledge of the water service challenges, data needs, and workforce issues experienced by Arctic communities and developed approaches to address these challenges with appropriate strategies, reducing uncertainty surrounding the operations of Arctic water infrastructure under conditions of climate change.

Funded by NSF award # 2022666  |  Collaborator: Dr. Jessica Kaminsky

RAPID/Collaborative Research: Implications of Social Distancing Policies on Water Infrastructure Systems

This grant explored how drinking water services provided by water utilities were impacted by the social distancing policies undertaken by much of the nation during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. Existing water meter data and new interview data were used to identify changes in water use patterns associated with various social distancing regimes. These data, coupled with physical, chemical, and microbiological water quality analyses, provided vital new empirical knowledge of water infrastructure performance under social distancing conditions.

Funded by NSF award # 2032434  |  Collaborators: Drs. Lynn Katz, Kerry Kinney, Lina Sela, Mary Jo Kirisits, Jessica Kaminsky

Collaborative: Standard: Institutions in Student Organizations Cultivating Cultures of Ethical Engineering

This project investigated the role that different student organizations play in cultivating ethical behavior of engineering students in the U.S. and identified the precise institutional mechanisms within those organizations that foster ethical behavior. Research shows that students are typically less interested in understanding the ethical implications of their work at the end of their studies than they were at the beginning — a gap indicating a continued need for research on factors effective in cultivating a culture of ethical STEM.

Funded by NSF award # 1926330  |  Collaborators: Drs. Cristina Poleacovschi, Scott Feinstein, Cassie Rutherford, Kate Padgett Walsh

Through this project, I developed an analytical framework to shift the paradigm from centralized technologies to decentralized technologies by understanding institutional motivators and barriers and exploring institutional complexity to diffuse innovation. Technologies exist within an operating context, and without understanding that context, many technologies will not thrive within the unique communities they were not designed specifically for. Understanding this operating context allows for satisficing engineering technologies that are sustainable in the long term, providing resilience against chronic events such as climate change.

Funded by the UT Austin Energy Institute  |  Collaborators: Drs. Lynn Katz, Guihua Yu

The rapid development of intelligent transportation systems in the past few decades has catalyzed the collection and use of big data. Here, we used data to enable more informed, data-driven planning for roadway construction operations — an application different from its typical use. The framework demonstration showcased the significance of using highly granular traffic data that considers the specifics of individual roadways to better inform construction planning.

Funded by TxDOT  |  Collaborator: Nabeel Khwaja

RT DCC-04: Promoting the Use of Advanced Work Packaging (AWP)

This research contributed to efforts promoting AWP use, aimed to identify potential solutions to overcome AWP implementation barriers, and provided recommendations to enhance AWP and engineering integration. Solutions to overcome AWP implementation barriers are presented and mapped directly to barriers; the research findings are synthesized through the AWP Concierge.

Funded by the Construction Industry Institute (CII)  |  Collaborator: Dr. Carlos Caldas

AWP Execution Planning Guide for Projects

This research developed an AWP Execution Planning Guide for Projects. The Guide helps speed adoption of AWP by providing common guidance for the industry, reducing the proliferation of competing specifications that can hinder adoption or investment by service providers.

Funded by the Construction Industry Institute (CII)  |  Collaborator: Dr. Bill O’Brien

Recognizing and Retaining Beneficial Changes from the Pandemic on the Workforce

This study investigated the changes in the way workers in the office and field experienced and perceived pandemic-related change, and which changes were perceived as positive and negative. This work converted lessons learned from these pandemic-induced changes into practical recommendations for capital projects organizations.

Funded by the Construction Industry Institute (CII)