DNFSB Geographic Information System (GIS) Natural Phenomenon

Hazard (NPH) Database

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB)Yong Li and Lisa Schleicher

Natural Phenomenon Hazards (NPH) on a Geographic Information System (GIS) Platform

• GIS is the best tool to integrate and visualize NPH data because NPH data are geospatial data

• Display and visualize NPH sources (earthquakes, flood, others) and their spatial relationship relative to critical facilities

• Estimate potential hazard change using some simple deterministic functions

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Example: Screenshot of LANL GIS Database

DOE Requirement for 10-year NPH Update

• DOE Order 420.1B (and subsequent versions), Facility Safety, Chapter IV, Natural Phenomena Hazards Mitigation, 3c(4) states that “[a]n [Natural Phenomena Hazard (NPH)] assessment review must be conducted at least every 10 years and must include recommendations to DOE for updating the existing assessments based on significant changes found in methods or data”

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NPH Database Supports Oversight• NPH assessment process may potentially becomes dynamic and

ongoing, not constrained by fixed time frame• Staff can be more informed when we make recommendation to DOE

the hazard change after we implement sensitive tests based on new data

• More proactive in making recommendation to DOE• Answer the “So What” question with supporting data

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Support Decision Making when NPH Events Occur

• Hazard estimation• Locate earthquakes or human induced events and estimate hazard

quickly • Emergency response

• Continuous operation recommendations• co-located workers and evacuation paths• Shelter locations and emergency vehicle routing

• Emergency preparation supporting decision making process• Seismic instrumentation locations, • Water level, wind direction, plume coverage, population centers

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GIS NPH Database Advantages (1)• Enhance the Board’s safety oversight of the DOE nuclear facility sites by

establishing NPH data records for each site• Allow the Board’s staff to better understand site-specific NPH information in an

integrated and aggregated manner since the GIS platform allows for visualization of key NPH information relative to facilities and other information interested

• Establish a centralized data retaining place, reducing the effort of data searching and collection, and therefore reducing future workloads for resident inspectors and cognizant engineers and data request to DOE too

• Systematically store NPH data and easy access • Ensure continuity and knowledge management of key NPH information as new

staff assumes those positions • Facilitate priority determination of NPH updates to ensure resources are

appropriately directed to achieve utmost safety impact

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GIS NPH Database Advantages (2)

• Allow the Board’s staff to be actively involved for the periodic NPH review of DOE sites in accordance with DOE Order 420.1c.

• Dynamic assessment of hazard data changes• Actively monitor NPH information with respect to potential increases in

hazard information, e.g. new faults or new seismic sources are identified• Initiate and facilitate independent analyses to estimate impacts due to

potential hazard changes from most recently available information in a short time frame

• Inform DNFSB interactions with DOE and its contractors (e.g., developing technically defensible agenda questions) with the latest hazard information, especially when new information (e.g., new faults) are identified

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GIS NPH Database Advantages (3)• Efficient

• Visualize data and provide decision input immediately • Prioritize staff’s work, which site has review priority because of significant data

change• Economic

• Low cost, $1000~ for an ArcMap software license• Can be built up gradually

• Using existing data, some sites, such as SRS, already has GIS data • Converting latitude and longitude data such as epicenters and fault line data

easily • Gathering new data from peers and academic conferences• Plan to spend 10 hours per site to gather and compile GIS data during review

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Making Informed Decisions for Several Scenarios

9Example: Screenshot of SRS GIS Database

DOE Nuclear Sites

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DNFSB GIS NPH Database Thematic Layers

• Facility data: structures, roads, boundaries and MAR, • Geographic data, zip data, population data, river, landscape, elevation …• Geologic: surface units, bedrock layers, faults, • Geophysics data: magnetic, gravity, seismic lines,• Seismic data, earthquake epicenters, seismic sources (point, line and area)• Geotechnical data: shear wave velocity profiles (point but with link to profiles),

blow counts• Seismic instrumentation or network location

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Sample Database structures

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Input Data Sources

• U.S. Geological Survey • Other government agencies• Sites, some sites such as SRS have significant GIS NPH data, including geology,

hydrology and geotechnical layers• Self converting from other data, for example, new earthquake data.• The staff will gather continuously the GIS NPH data from publications and

academic conferences.

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GIS NPH Data Quality Assurance

• For input data• Visually checking the entire data • Sample check in detail, 10%

• For output data used in confirmatory or sensitivity analyses• Check the coordinates and projections if the data is used in supporting analyses• Check the contents, 100%

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Plan for GIS NPH Database

• Short term (2018- 2020)*• Gathering seismic data• Starting with SRS and LANL • Build tools to deterministically check emergent events

• Long term (beyond 2020)*• Expand to other natural hazards, wind, flood and volcanic• Every DOE site

* Changes can be made based on project need and data availability

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GIS NPH Data Quality Assurance

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Conclusions

• GIS powered NPH database will help DNFSB staff to support the Board’s mission of performing independent oversight of safe design and operation for DOE nuclear facilities by:

1) Making the staff’s oversight of NPH periodic review and new design more dynamic, informative, and effective

2) Provide a powerful analysis tool for emergent NPH3) Assisting the staff’s oversight of emergency

preparation and hazard mitigation when NPH events or human related events occur

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Disclaimer The views expressed herein are solely those of the authors (speaker), and no official support or endorsement by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board or the U.S. Government is intended or should be inferred”

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Questions ?

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