The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) manages one of the most critical networks of infrastructure in Southern California, delivering water and electricity to more than four million residents. That makes LADWP the largest municipal utility in the country. In a region where seismic events are a fact of life, ensuring this infrastructure can withstand earthquakes is essential for the security and safety of those residents.
Through a long-standing partnership between UCLA and LADWP, researchers across the university are helping the community improve the resilience of its critical infrastructure so that Angelenos can continue to have access to water and power, even in an emergency.
A major contributor to that effort is researcher Yousef Bozorgnia, a UCLA professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and an internationally recognized expert in earthquake engineering.
His work focuses on how earthquakes affect the built environment, examining the characteristics of earthquake motion itself and how infrastructure performs during major seismic events.
Bozorgnia approaches his work with a passion: “Earthquake engineering is my life. It's not just a business,” he said. This commitment is reflected in the depth of his work over the decades.
Because his research informs decisions about infrastructure that millions of people rely on, Bozorgnia works extensively with utilities, state agencies, national laboratories, private industry, and researchers from other universities. With support from many partners, his team can undertake extensive projects that improve understanding of seismic risk across California and beyond.
He also feels that the critical importance of this work requires much collaboration. “We just want to make sure that all key experts in the community…are involved,” he said. The scale of the work demands it.
Through its relationship with UCLA, LADWP is able to draw on Bozorgnia’s decades of expertise to achieve mutual goals. Rather than relying on one-time studies, LADWP gains deep, ongoing access to research developed and refined over a lifetime of work.
Saving Ratepayers Money By Rightsizing Infrastructure Investments
Drawing on massive data sets from around the world and decades of work, Bozorgnia and his colleagues from inside and outside UCLA developed models that help predict how faults move during earthquakes. Up to 90% of the water used in LA comes from outside the city. This means ensuring that those pipelines are built to withstand—or at least avoid catastrophic damage during—seismic events is essential to prevent a disastrous loss of water access following earthquakes.
Bozorgnia and his team at UCLA help provide LADWP engineers with a clear understanding of which aspects of the city’s complex water system are most vulnerable in the event of a significant earthquake, and which are more resilient: information that can be used to inform strategic retrofitting, upgrades, and other critical investments.
This allows LADWP to right-size their capital improvement investments and avoid overbuilding, which means avoiding costs that would be passed to ratepayers.
Keeping LA Connected, Even In A Disaster
Youssef and his team have several projects with LADWP.
He is currently looking at the Elizabeth Tunnel, which is a critical component of LA’s water delivery system. It also crosses the infamous San Andreas Fault, making it particularly vulnerable to seismic activity.
He is also looking at large transmission water pipelines in the San Fernando Valley, which move substantial volumes of water across the city.
In another effort, he and his team collaborated with researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and used simulated earthquake shaking to analyze seismic performance of transmission pipelines embedded in soil.
These studies work together to provide the LADWP with a clearer picture of seismic risk across many different scenarios in its water delivery system. Utility planners can access research-backed models to understand which components are most vulnerable, which resilience plans are effective, and where they are most needed.
Seismic Protection in LA and Beyond
The relationship works. “We enjoyed working with them on real-world problems, and they enjoyed our collaboration,” Bozorgnia said.
And, importantly, the impacts of this work can help beyond LA’s borders.
Bozorgnia's work is one of 28 projects supported through UCLA’s partnership with LADWP, many of them led by researchers affiliated with the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.
As the LADWP continues planning for the future, collaborations like this one—enabled by this partnership—ensure that the best available research informs impactful decisions that affect people's lives.
Learn more about UCLA’s long-standing partnership with LADWP.