Using Social Network Analysis As a Tool to Analyze and Evaluate Implications of Water Distribution Network Failure in Tampa, Florida

Noha Abdel-Mottaleb (niversity of South Florida)

Water distribution systems are a critical infrastructure of the urban environment. However, urban planning and design does not always account for the resulting performance of water distribution networks confined within the boundaries of a city’s layout. The “majority illusion” is the observation that network structure can significantly distort individuals’ (i.e. nodes) local observations. We use this social network analysis technique to study the majority illusion for a logical network model of water distribution network hydraulic connectivity. By selecting different percentages of initially activated/failed components and varying the outdegree of failed components, we quantify the contribution of each factor on the resulting aggregate failure for Tampa, FL. This research has implications for understanding failure propagation in water distribution networks by evaluating the influence of water distribution failure propagation on the urban environment.