Beth Barnes

• Email: e.m.barnes2@ncl.ac.uk

Supervisors

• Dr Sarah Dunn
• Dr Sean Wilkinson

Project description

Natural disasters can cause major adverse impacts on our communities. Natural earth processes may be hydrological, geological or meteorological/climatological. These impacts can destroy and damage infrastructure systems. They can sever water, sanitation and power provision. They can affect transportation routes, access to healthcare and shelter. These systems are vital to civilisation. They underpin the functioning of our communities and have grown to fulfil our changing needs.

There are no fixed set of likely impacts, or consequences, from any one natural disaster, making them difficult to predict and prepare for. These natural hazards are unpredictable, but it is possible to carry out Disaster Management planning. Management techniques involve the creation of plans and systems. These aim to reduce community vulnerability to hazard and enable them to cope with the negative impacts. To develop effective plans, we need to model how infrastructure systems and individuals behave in these events. This can be particularly challenging. The systems are complex. There is often a lack of knowledge surrounding the existing infrastructure before an event occurs. Coupled with the hazard modelling of unknown events, this presents an extremely challenging problem.

This project will create an agent-based modelling framework tool. The tool will help management professionals develop and test contingency plans for emergency hazard scenarios. Combined with the model will be a more robust representation of human behaviour. We will link this to the requirements of the infrastructure which underpins and supports communities. Human behaviour will influence the infrastructure requirements. For example, will residents remain close to home or will they ‘run away’ to a safer location? This will inform what the infrastructure needs to do to support communities after a hazard event occurs.

Publications

• Barnes B, Dunn S, Wilkinson S. Natural hazards, disaster management and simulation: a bibliometric analysis of keyword searches. Natural Hazards 2019, 97(2), 813-840.
• Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE). Innovation: Stepping up the Industry 2015.
• Barnes, B. Can improved agent-based modelling be the answer to better disaster management 2017, ICE.

Interests

Agent-based modelling, natural hazards, resilience, disaster management.

Qualifications

• MEng 1st Class: Civil Engineeing, Newcastle University