Risk-Based Assessment of Sustainability and Hazard Resistance of Structural Design

This paper provides a risk-based assessment of the sustainability of structural design alternatives in hazard-prone regions. Little systematic research has been done to assess the economic, social, and environmental cost of sustainable construction in relation to hazard resilience or the impacts of hazard-resilient design on system sustainability. However, some studies have suggested that green construction practices might compromise the objective of the design of hazard resistance of a building, whereas others have highlighted that the impacts of natural hazard damage are unsustainable, given the costs of reconstruction and threats to public safety, among other consequences. This paper extends the performance-based engineering paradigm beyond traditional metrics of structural performance to quantify such sustainability metrics as monetary cost, embodied energy, emissions, casualties, and downtime. The upfront environmental and economic costs of sustainable design alternatives are then compared with hazard-induced risks, considering uncertainties stemming from the hazard, damage assessment, or sustainability analysis. The sustainability analysis is illustrated for both bridges and buildings sited in seismically prone regions, revealing the potential trade-off in upfront costs and lifetime sustainability attributable to hazard exposure.