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Sensitivity Analysis of Tsunami Evacuation Risk with Respect to Epistemic

Uncertainty

Article  in  ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems Part A Civil Engineering · July 2022
DOI: 10.1061/AJRUA6.0001257

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 Sensitivity Analysis of Tsunami Evacuation Risk with
Respect to Epistemic Uncertainty
Zhenqiang Wang, A.M.ASCE 1; and Gaofeng Jia, A.M.ASCE 2

Abstract: To assess tsunami evacuation risk accurately in order to guide effective evacuation planning, various uncertainties (including the
aleatory and epistemic uncertainties) associated with the evacuation process need to be quantified properly. Reducing the epistemic uncer-
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tainties associated with the evacuation process (e.g., through data collection) can facilitate more-accurate estimation of tsunami evacuation
risk. To guide such reduction or prioritize data collection, this study performed sensitivity analysis of tsunami evacuation risk (i.e., risk
sensitivity analysis) with respect to epistemic uncertainty. An agent-based tsunami evacuation model was used to simulate the evacuation
within a simulation-based risk assessment framework, which incorporated various uncertainties associated with the evacuation process. The
aleatory uncertainty in the input random variable was quantified by probability distribution models, and the epistemic uncertainties were
quantified by distribution parameters that also were modeled by probability distributions. Sensitivity analysis of tsunami evacuation risk with
respect to the epistemic uncertainty was performed to evaluate the impact of various epistemic uncertainties on the variability of the evacu-
ation risk and identify those that have relatively large impacts. An augmented sample-based approach was used to calculate efficiently the
variance-based sensitivity indexes (i.e., Sobol’ indexes) for all distribution parameters. The sensitivity information can be used to prioritize
the data collection for effective epistemic uncertainty reduction, and for a more accurate risk assessment to support more-effective evacuation
planning. As an illustrative example, sensitivity analysis of tsunami evacuation risk of Seaside, Oregon with respect to epistemic uncertainty
was performed under different risk measures. DOI: 10.1061/AJRUA6.0001257. © 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Tsunami evacuation; Risk sensitivity analysis; Epistemic uncertainty; Importance ranking; Distribution parameter;
Agent-based model.

Introduction
An earthquake-induced tsunami can cause widespread loss of lives,
especially in low-lying coastal communities threatened by near-
field tsunamis (Wood et al. 2015; Angove et al. 2019). Evacuation
to the safety zone is regarded as one of the most effective ways
of protecting lives from tsunamis (Dewi 2012; Takabatake et al.
2017). More-accurate evacuation risk assessment is critical to ef-
fective evacuation planning (Jelínek et al. 2012; González-Riancho
et al. 2013; Angove et al. 2019). Based on the more accurate risk
assessment, emergency managers and the public would have a bet-
ter understanding of the risk situation and challenges in evacuating
the at-risk population in a short time (Jelínek et al. 2012; Wood and
Schmidtlein 2013; Angove et al. 2019), which would lead to more-
effective evacuation planning through informing measures and strat-
egies such as improving community preparedness and strengthening
public education and training (Angove et al. 2019).
To assess evacuation risk accurately, various uncertainties
in evacuation need to be quantified and propagated (Post et al.
2009; Chen et al. 2019). In tsunami evacuation simulation, various
1
Postdoctoral, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Colorado
State Univ., Fort Collins, CO 80523. Email: Zhenqiang.Wang@colostate
.edu
2
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO 80523 (corresponding author).
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9419-8481. Email: Gaofeng.Jia@
colostate.edu
Note. This manuscript was submitted on November 10, 2021; ap-
proved on April 12, 2022; published online on July 5, 2022. Discussion
period open until December 5, 2022; separate discussions must be sub-
mitted for individual papers. This paper is part of the ASCE-ASME Jour-
nal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil
Engineering, © ASCE, ISSN 2376-7642.
uncertainties exist either due to the natural and inherent variability
of the model input variables (the aleatory uncertainty) or due to a
lack of knowledge of the distribution parameters (the epistemic
uncertainty). Typically, imprecise probability models are used to
quantify both types of uncertainties (Sankararaman and Mahadevan
2013; Hurtado 2013; Schöbi and Sudret 2019). Specifically, prob-
ability distribution models are used to model the aleatory uncertainty
in input random variables, whereas the epistemic uncertainty under
the selected probability model is quantified by the distribution
parameters that also can be modeled by probability distributions. In
existing research on tsunami evacuation or evacuation risk, some
important uncertainties associated with the evacuation process
often were neglected (e.g., neglecting the uncertainty in the seismic
damage to the transportation network). In addition, epistemic un-
certainties usually are not incorporated (i.e., only the aleatory un-
certainty is considered, but the epistemic uncertainty is neglected)
(Wang and Jia 2021b).
Due to the various aleatory uncertainties and epistemic uncer-
tainties associated with the tsunami evacuation process, there is a
high degree of uncertainty in evacuation risk assessment (i.e., large
variability of the evacuation risk), either overestimated or underes-
timated, which makes evacuation planning relatively crude, and ul-
timately might result in unnecessary widespread disruption such as
overevacuation, economic loss, and inconsistent responses or more
loss of lives (Angove et al. 2019). Because epistemic uncertainty is
reducible when additional data are available (Der Kiureghian and
Ditlevsen 2009; González et al. 2009), the evacuation risk could be
assessed more accurately through the reduction of the epistemic
uncertainty (Post et al. 2009; Jelínek et al. 2012). The epistemic
uncertainty can be reduced effectively through data collection of dis-
tribution parameters (Post et al. 2009; Jelínek et al. 2012). However,
data collection (particularly of up-to-date data) typically requires

© ASCE 04022037-1 ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng.

ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng., 2022, 8(3): 04022037
 many resources, especially for the complex tsunami evacuation
process involving many physical, social, and psychological factors
(Jelínek et al. 2012; Wood and Schmidtlein 2013; Alabdouli 2017).
To implement an effective and efficient data collection, the priori-
tization of data collection is crucial, i.e., how to devote limited re-
sources to collecting more high-quality and important data. In this
case, it is critical to identify the epistemic uncertainties that have a
large impact on the variability of the evacuation risk.
Sensitivity analysis commonly is used to identify the sensitivity
of the system model output to the model input, i.e., identify the
importance of the model input (Taflanidis and Jia 2011; Jia and
Taflanidis 2014). However, much of the research on tsunami evac-
uation involving sensitivity analysis has focused on the model
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sensitivity to the individual random variable (parametric study),
i.e., examining the sensitivity of the model output to the uncertainty
of a single random variable while keeping other uncertain vari-
ables constant [e.g., demographic-sensitivity analyses (Wood and
Schmidtlein 2013; Wood et al. 2015); model sensitivity to land
cover and path direction (Schmidtlein and Wood 2015); and model
sensitivity to the individual random variable associated with the
evacuation behavior (Wang et al. 2016; Mostafizi et al. 2017;
Mostafizi et al. 2019; Chen et al. 2019)]. To the best of our knowl-
edge, no research has been conducted on the full sensitivity analy-
sis of tsunami evacuation risk to evaluate the impact of various
epistemic uncertainties on the variability of the evacuation risk and
identify those that have relatively large impacts.
To address the aforementioned knowledge gap, this study inves-
tigated the sensitivity of tsunami evacuation risk with respect to
various epistemic uncertainties. To simulate the evacuation process,
an agent-based tsunami evacuation model was used. Various alea-
tory uncertainties and epistemic uncertainties were incorporated in
the agent-based evacuation model, e.g., the uncertainties in the seis-
mic damage to the transportation network, the departure time, the
pedestrian speed, and so forth. Imprecise probability models were
used to quantify both types of uncertainties, in which the aleatory
uncertainty in input random variables was modeled by the probabil-
ity distribution model and the epistemic uncertainty was quantified
by the distribution parameters modeled by probability distributions.
Then the variance-based sensitivity index, i.e., the Sobol’ index, was
used as the sensitivity measure to quantify the importance of each
distribution parameter and their interactions in the variability of the
tsunami evacuation risk. The augmented sample-based approach
was used for the efficient calculation of the Sobol’ index for all dis-
tribution parameters (including the first-order indexes or main effect
and higher-order interactions) in the risk sensitivity analysis using
only one set of simulations. Then the importance ranking of distri-
bution parameters was identified based on the sensitivity index val-
ues. As an illustrative example, the importance ranking of various
distribution parameters associated with the tsunami evacuation risk
of Seaside, Oregon was identified using the sensitivity analysis of
tsunami evacuation risk. The results can be used to guide data col-
lection prioritization for an effective epistemic uncertainty reduction,
which further can be used for more-accurate evacuation risk assess-
ment and more-effective evacuation planning.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Sec-
tion “Tsunami Evacuation Risk Quantification” introduces the
simulation-based quantification of tsunami evacuation risk for given
values of the distribution parameter. Section “Sensitivity Analysis of
Tsunami Evacuation Risk with Respect to Epistemic Uncertainty”
presents the sensitivity analysis of tsunami evacuation risk with
respect to epistemic uncertainty and the evaluation of the sensitivity
indexes using an augmented sample-based approach. Section
“Illustrative Example” presents an illustrative example to identify
the importance ranking of distribution parameters associated with
© ASCE 04022037-2
ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng., 2022, 8(3): 04022037
the tsunami evacuation of Seaside, Oregon using the sensitivity
analysis of tsunami evacuation risk. Section “Conclusions” summa-
rizes the research findings.
Tsunami Evacuation Risk Quantification
To quantify the tsunami evacuation risk for a community, the
simulation-based framework proposed by Wang and Jia (2021b)
was used. Although different tsunami evacuation models can be
used to simulate the tsunami evacuation process, here the agent-
based tsunami evacuation model introduced by Wang and Jia
(2021a) was used within the framework due to its ability to sim-
ulate the tsunami evacuation process more realistically. Probability
models were used to quantify the uncertainties in the random var-
iables of the evacuation model. Propagation of the uncertainties
then led to quantification of the tsunami evacuation risk. Next,
the tsunami evacuation model and the simulation-based framework
are briefly described.
Agent-Based Tsunami Evacuation Model
The agent-based tsunami evacuation model introduced by Wang
and Jia (2021a) was used to simulate the tsunami evacuation more
realistically. Fig. 1 illustrates the key modeling components of
the agent-based tsunami evacuation model. The model is decribed
briefly herein; the details were given by Wang and Jia (2021a).
The agent-based tsunami evacuation model extends the agent-
based modeling framework for a multimodal evacuation simulation
for a near-field tsunami proposed by Wang et al. (2016). To sim-
ulate the evacuation more realistically, the agent-based tsunami
evacuation model used here incorporated several novelties, such as
considering the earthquake-induced damage to the transportation
network, modeling the pedestrian–vehicle interaction in the multi-
modal evacuation (i.e., evacuation on foot and by car), and so forth.
The agent-based tsunami evacuation model consisted of three
submodels, i.e., an evacuation environment model (EEM), an evacu-
ation decision and behavior model (EBM), and an evacuation per-
formance model (EPM). In the EEM, multiple hazards (earthquake
and earthquake-induced tsunami), transportation networks, tsunami
shelters, and population distribution are simulated. In the simula-
tion, the uncertainties in the intensity measure at the link (i.e., road
and bridge) site (Campbell and Bozorgnia 2008; Abrahamson et al.
2018) and the resulting seismic damage to the link were modeled,
and the traffic capacity of the damaged link was reduced according
to the damage level (Wang and Jia 2019, 2020b) to model the in-
teraction between evacuees and the damaged environment. The
time series of the tsunami inundation depth at different locations of
the study area were calculated using ComMIT/MOST (Titov and
González 1997) to capture the dynamics of the tsunami inundation.
Different population sizes and distributions throughout the commu-
nity were modeled to characterize the population mobility. The EBM
simulated the departure time, evacuation mode, shelter selection, and
evacuation speed. In this submodel, the variability of the departure
time was modeled by a Rayleigh distribution adjusted from Wang
et al. (2016), and the multimodal evacuation including evacuation on
foot and by car was considered, in which the pedestrian–vehicle
interaction was simulated by traffic stage transitions determined by
the volume ratio of pedestrians to cars on the same link (Mauro
et al. 2014). Specifically, depending on the volume ratio of pedes-
trians and cars, different traffic stages were defined, i.e., vehicle-
dominated, balanced, and pedestrian-dominated. As the volume
ratio of pedestrians and cars changed, the traffic stages transitioned
from one to another (i.e., the traffic stage transition), and the road
width occupied by pedestrians and cars was adjusted accordingly.
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Fig. 1. Illustration of the agent-based tsunami evacuation model (Wang and Jia 2021b).
Furthermore, the variability of the pedestrian speed and the speed
adjustment for both the pedestrian and car were modeled in the
multimodal evacuation. In the EPM, the critical depth was used to
determine the casualties (Wang et al. 2016; Mostafizi et al. 2017)
(i.e., an evacuee was considered to be a casualty when the inunda-
tion depth was greater than the critical depth), and the casualty rate
was used as the evacuation performance measure. Considering the
varied characteristics of evacuees, the uncertainty in the critical water
depth was modeled. The agent-based tsunami evacuation model was
developed in NetLogo version 6.0.4, which is an integrated agent-
based modeling environment (Wilensky 2001).
Tsunami Evacuation Risk
The generalized simulation-based framework proposed by Wang
and Jia (2021b) (Fig. 2) was used for the quantification of the tsu-
nami evacuation risk. Let x ¼ ½xe ; xb ; xp  ∈ X represent all the in-
put random variables in the space of X, where xe , xb , and xp denote
the input random variables in the EEM, EBM, and EPM, respec-
tively. We can use the probability model fðxjθÞ to quantify the un-
certainty in x (i.e., aleatory uncertainty), which corresponds to the
probability density function (PDF) for continuous variables or the
probability mass function (PMF) for discrete variables. We use θ ¼
½θe ; θb ; θp  ∈ Θ to represent the distribution parameters that define
the probability model fðxjθÞ, where Θ represents the space of pos-
sible values of θ. To consider the potential variability of the distri-
bution parameters, we can define a probability distribution fðθÞ to
quantify the epistemic uncertainty in the distribution parameters θ.
In terms of the uncertainties in x, for example, in the EEM, un-
certainties exist in the seismic damage to the link (road or bridge) of
the transportation network, and the population size and distribution
throughout the community. In the EBM, uncertainties exist in the
© ASCE 04022037-3
ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng., 2022, 8(3): 04022037
time to issue the tsunami warning after the occurrence of a tsuna-
migenic earthquake (i.e., warning time), the departure time, the pro-
portion of evacuees who use cars in the evacuation, the thresholds
used to determine the traffic stage transition, and the variability
of pedestrian speed. In the EPM, uncertainty exists in the critical
depth. Based on the tsunami evacuation simulation model, evacu-
ation performance can be evaluated. Let hðxÞ represent the per-
formance measure of the evacuation for given x, which is the
evacuation risk consequence measure in the context of tsunami
evacuation risk assessment.
In this context, the evacuation risk under any given value of
θ [denoted HðθÞ] can be established by propagating the uncertain-
ties in x
Z
HðθÞ ¼ Exjθ ½hðxÞ ¼ hðxÞfðxjθÞdx ð1Þ
X
where x ¼ ½xe ; xb ; xp  ¼ ½x1 ; : : : ; xi ; : : : ; xnx , where xi = ith
input; nx = total number of inputs; and θ ¼ ½θe ; θb ; θp  ¼
½θ1 ; : : : ; θi ; : : : ; θnθ . When hðxÞ corresponds to the indicator func-
tion I F ðxÞ, which takes a value of 1 when failure occurs, where
failure can be defined as the case in which the evacuation perfor-
mance does not meet some performance threshold (e.g., when the
casualty rate exceeds a certain threshold) and 0 otherwise, the risk
HðθÞ corresponds to the failure probability PF ðθÞ (i.e., the prob-
ability of having unacceptable evacuation performance in the con-
text of evacuation risk).
Sensitivity Analysis of Tsunami Evacuation Risk
with Respect to Epistemic Uncertainty
From the perspective of data collection prioritization for more-
effective epistemic uncertainty reduction in distribution parameters θ,
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Fig. 2. Quantification of tsunami evacuation risk under the given value of distribution parameter (Wang and Jia 2021b).

we were interested in identifying the important distribution param-
eters the epistemic uncertainties of which have larger impacts on
the variability of the risk HðθÞ [Eq. (1)]. To quantify the importance
of each distribution parameter, we used sensitivity analysis. In
particular, the variance-based sensitivity index, i.e., the Sobol’ in-
dex, was used as the sensitivity measure. Fig. 3 shows how sensi-
tivity analysis of tsunami evacuation risk is used with respect
to epistemic uncertainty to guide epistemic uncertainty reduction,
where μH and V H represent the mean and variance of HðθÞ, respec-
where Ei ½· = expectation with respect to θi ; fðθi Þ = probability
distribution for θi ; θ∼i = remaining of distribution parameters ex-
cluding θi from θ (i.e., θ ¼ ½θ∼i ; θi ); fðθ∼i jθi Þ = conditional den-
sity for θ∼i ; and Θi and Θ∼i = space of possible values of θi and θ∼i ,
respectively. The integration with respect to ζ ¼ ½x; θ∼i  corre-
sponds to the expanded version of ξ i ðθi Þ that is expressed by
Z
ξ i ðθi Þ ¼ E∼i ½HðθÞjθi  ¼ Hðθ∼i ; θi Þfðθ∼i jθi Þdθ∼i ð4Þ
Θ∼i

tively. To address the computational challenge of calculating the where E∼i ½· = expectation with respect to θ∼i .
sensitivity indexes, considering that evaluation of the multidimen- In Eq. (2), μH and V H are given by
sional risk integral for HðθÞ in Eq. (1) under any given value of θ Z
entails significant computational challenges, we used the efficient μH ¼ Eθ ½HðθÞ ¼ HðθÞfðθÞdθ
augmented sample-based approach proposed by Wang and Jia Θ
(2020a). Z Z 
¼ hðxÞfðxjθÞdx fðθÞdθ ð5Þ
Θ X
Global Sensitivity Measure: Sobol’ Index and
Z
The first-order Sobol’ index Si for θi (i.e., the main effect of θi ) is 2
defined as (Sobol 2001) V H ¼ Eθ ½ðHðθÞ − μH Þ  ¼ HðθÞ2 fðθÞdθ − μ2H
Θ
Z Z 2
Vi E ½ξ ðθ Þ2  − μ2H
Si ¼ ¼ i i i ð2Þ ¼ hðxÞfðxjθÞdx fðθÞdθ − μ2H ð6Þ
VH VH Θ X

where V i = expected reduction in variance V H conditional on given Similar to the first-order Sobol’ index, the Sobol’ index for
θi , and the expectation higher-order interaction and the total sensitivity index also can be
Z Z 2 defined (Homma and Saltelli 1996; Sobol 2001). Sobol’ indexes typ-
2
Ei ½ξ i ðθi Þ  ¼ hðxÞfðxjθ∼i ; θi Þfðθ∼i jθi Þdζ fðθi Þdθi ically are defined for independent inputs. When the inputs are corre-
Θi X;Θ∼i
lated, to investigate the impact of correlated inputs on Sobol’ index,
ð3Þ methods have been developed to decompose further the variance

© ASCE 04022037-4 ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng.

ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng., 2022, 8(3): 04022037
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Colorado State Univ Lbrs on 07/29/22. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

Fig. 3. Illustration of sensitivity analysis of tsunami evacuation risk with respect to epistemic uncertainty, parts of which were adapted from Wang
and Jia (2021b).

contributions by an individual correlated input to the model output πðθi Þ

and identify the contributions from the individual input itself and ξ i ðθi Þ ¼ μ ð9Þ
fðθi Þ H
the correlations (Li and Lu 2017; Xu and Gertner 2008).
Based on Eqs. (2) and (9), the first-order Sobol’ index Si can be
Estimation of Sobol’ Index Using Augmented expressed as
Sample-Based Approach Z   
μ2 πðθi Þ 2
The calculation of each first-order Sobol’ index Si in Eq. (2) re- Si ¼ H fðθi Þdθi − 1
VH Θi fðθi Þ
quires the evaluation of Ei ½ξ i ðθi Þ2 , which involves a double-loop Z   
integration; moreover, the integration in Eq. (3) needs to be re- μ2 πðθi Þ
¼ H πðθi Þdθi − 1 ð10Þ
peated for different parameter combinations and parameter values VH Θi fðθi Þ
to calculate the Sobol’ index for higher-order interaction. Typically,
Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) is used to evaluate the double-loop To calculate Si efficiently in the aforementioned form, a set of
integration (Sobol 2001); however, the direct estimation of the risk candidate samples f½xkc ; θkc ; k ¼ 1; : : : ; N c g is generated from some
integral using MCS entails a significant computational burden, es- joint proposal density qs ðx; θÞ, and the corresponding hðxÞ is
pecially for systems with expensive models and a large number of evaluated. Then the stochastic sampling algorithm (e.g., the accept–
inputs and distribution parameters (Wang and Jia 2020a). To ad- reject method) (Jia and Taflanidis 2015; Jia et al. 2017) can be
dress such a challenge, the augmented sample-based approach in- used to obtain ns samples from the joint PDF πðx; θÞ, denoted
troduced by Wang and Jia (2020a) was used to evaluate the Sobol’ f½xk ; θk ; k ¼ 1; : : : ; ns g. The selection of the proposal density will
index efficiently. affect the sampling efficiency. If no prior knowledge is available to
As the basis of the augmented sample-based approach, a joint guide this selection, typically the proposal density can be selected
auxiliary density πðx; θÞ is defined for ½x; θ that is proportional to as the prior density, i.e., selecting qs ðx; θÞ as qs ðx; θÞ ¼ fðx; θÞ ¼
the integrand of the risk integral for μH in Eq. (5) fðxjθÞfðθÞ. On the other hand, to improve the sampling efficiency,
hðxÞfðxjθÞfðθÞ some advanced stochastic sampling techniques have leveraged the
πðx; θÞ ¼ ∝ hðxÞfðxjθÞfðθÞ ð7Þ information from a small number of existing samples from πðx; θÞ
μH
to build better proposal density. For example, adaptive kernel sam-
based on which the marginal auxiliary density for θi, πðθi Þ, can be pling density (AKSD) has been proposed to build better proposal
established as density aimed at maximizing the sampling efficiency (Jia et al.
Z 2017). Based on the marginal samples for θi (obtained by projec-
πðθi Þ ¼ πðx; θÞdζ ting the ns samples to the space of θi ), kernel density estimation
X;Θ∼i (KDE) or the boundary-corrected KDE (Karunamuni and Zhang
R
fðθi Þ X;Θ∼i hðxÞfðxjθÞfðθ∼i jθi Þdζ fðθi Þ 2008; Jia and Taflanidis 2016) can be used to estimate the marginal
¼ ¼ ξ ðθ Þ ð8Þ auxiliary PDF πðθi Þ, and the estimate is denoted πðθ ~ i Þ. Then the
μH μH i i
density πðθi Þ for any value of θi can be approximated efficiently by
Then ξ i ðθi Þ can be written the corresponding KDE estimate πðθ ~ i Þ. Based on πðθ~ i Þ and Eq. (9),

© ASCE 04022037-5 ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng.

ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng., 2022, 8(3): 04022037
 ξ i ðθi Þ for any value of θi can be calculated efficiently. Ultimately, After the sensitivity index (i.e., Sobol’ index) values (including
the first-order Sobol’ index Si in Eq. (10) can be approximated by the first-order or main effect and higher-order interactions) are ob-
MCS as tained, they can be used to compare the importance of each distri-
! bution parameter θi in the variability of the tsunami evacuation risk.
1X μ̂2H
ns
πðθ
~ ki Þ Then, the importance ranking information can be used to guide the
Ŝi ≈ −1 ð11Þ data collection prioritization for more-effective epistemic uncer-
ns k¼1 fðθi Þ
k
V̂ H
tainty reduction and for more-accurate evacuation risk assessment,
and therefore more-effective evacuation planning.
where μH and V H are estimated based on the same set of simula-
tions. Specifically, μH can be established using all available can-
didate samples Illustrative Example

1 X
Nc
fðxkc jθkc Þfðθkc Þ For the example, we considered the tsunami evacuation risk of
μ̂H ≈ hðxkc Þ ð12Þ Seaside, Oregon. Sensitivity analysis of tsunami evacuation risk
qs ðxkc ; θkc Þ
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N c k¼1
Using the same set of simulations, V H can be approximated
efficiently by
" #2
1 X 1 X
Nc Nc j k
j fðxc jθc Þ fðθkc Þ
V̂ H ≈ hðxc Þ − μ̂2H ð13Þ
N c k¼1 N c j¼1 qs ðxjc jθjc Þ qs ðθkc Þ
The coefficient of variation (COV) for the MCS approximation
of Si can be calculated and used to evaluate the estimation accuracy
of Si , which relies on the accuracy of KDE and the estimate accu-
racy of μH and V H . The COV decreases as N c and ns increase,
because more candidate samples (i.e., larger value of N c ) lead to
a more accurate estimation of μH and V H and the accuracy of KDE
increases as ns increases. Overall, the COV can be used to select ns
and, accordingly, N c , because the N c candidate samples are used
to generate the ns samples from πðx; θÞ, and increasing ns means
increasing N c as well.
In addition to the first-order sensitivity indexes, the higher-order
interactions can be estimated efficiently using the augmented sample-
based approach based on the same set of simulations. For example,
the Sobol’ index Sij for the subset θij ¼ ½θi ; θj  can be estimated by
! The tsunami evacuation simulation was built on top of Case study
1X πðθ
~ kij Þ μ̂2H
ns
Ŝij ≈ −1 ð14Þ
ns k¼1 fðθij Þ
k
V̂ H
where the estimate of the marginal auxiliary density for θij,
i.e., πðθij Þ, is established using the multivariate KDE or the multi-
variate boundary corrected KDE. Then the second-order Sobol’ index
for the interaction between θi and θj , i.e., S½ij , can be estimated by
Ŝ½ij ¼ Ŝij − Ŝi − Ŝj ð15Þ
Similarly, other higher-order Sobol’ indexes can be established
(Jia and Taflanidis 2016). By projecting the samples from πðx; θÞ to
the subsets of interest, the corresponding Sobol’ indexes can be
evaluated efficiently, including both first-order and higher-order in-
dexes. In comparison, evaluation of the Sobol’ index using direct
MCS requires rerunning simulations for each index of interest,
leading to high computational burden for applications with a large
number of inputs. To improve the computational efficiency, alterna-
tive simulation methods such as importance sampling and extended
MCS have been proposed (Wei et al. 2012, 2014; Tang et al. 2016).
However, these methods still require repeating the simulations for
each index. Instead, the augmented sample-based approach requires
only one set of simulations or samples to estimate all sensitivity
indexes, corresponding to high efficiency. This high efficiency is
important and desirable, because the agent-based tsunami evacu-
ation model is quite expensive to run (as is demonstrated by the
example).
with respect to epistemic uncertainties in distribution parameters is
carried out. Since the sensitivity results would vary depending on
the risk measure of interest, here the sensitivity analysis is carried
out under two different risk definitions.
Study Area
For the study area for the tsunami evacuation simulation, we se-
lected Seaside, Oregon [Fig. 4(b)]. It has been the focus of many
tsunami evacuation studies (Wang et al. 2016; Mostafizi et al.
2017, 2019) because of (1) its high risk of multiple natural hazards
(i.e., seismic and near-field tsunami hazards) due to the proximity
to the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) [Fig. 4(a)] (Priest et al.
2016; Mostafizi et al. 2017); (2) its high vulnerability to tsunami
inundation due to the fairly flat topography and two rivers that flow
through the city; and (3) the high complexity of tsunami evacuation
due to the relatively far shelters (more than 1.5 km), high popula-
tion mobility throughout the three subareas (beach, downtown, and
residential area), and the bottlenecks in the transportation network
caused by the 10 bridges over the 2 rivers.
Modeling Details
C4 by Wang and Jia (2021a); however, we considered uncertain
population size and distributions throughout different subareas in
the community, as well as some different parameters used to define
the uncertain model inputs (i.e., input random variables). We focused
on the implementation details in the context of the simulation-based
framework described in the section “Tsunami Evacuation Risk
Quantification”; other details of the evacuation simulation were
given by Wang and Jia (2021a). For the hypothetical seismic and
tsunami hazard inputs in the evacuation simulation, we considered
the 1700 Cascadia earthquake with Mw ¼ 9.0 and a focal depth
of 40 km. We considered this hypothetical multiple hazard input
because (1) the last great seismic event on the CSZ occurred on
January 26, 1700, with moment magnitude estimated between 8.7
and 9.2 (Satake et al. 2003); and (2) there is about a 10% proba-
bility of the occurrence of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake at the CSZ
over a 35-year time-frame (Goldfinger et al. 2012). The evacuation
was assumed to occur at noon during some weekend in summer and
lasted for 1 h starting from the occurrence of the earthquake.
In the EEM, the input random variables xe ¼ ½xdi ; ne ; ρ1 ; ρ2 ; ρ3 
with i ¼ 1; 2; : : : ; 896 and xdi ¼ DSj with j ¼ 1; 2; : : : ; 5, where
xdi represents the seismic damage (denoted DS) to the ith link of
the transportation network ne denotes the population size; and ρ1 ,
ρ2 , and ρ3 are the population proportion on the beach, downtown,
and in the residential area, respectively. The probabilities of seismic
damage to roads and bridges were estimated using the fragility
functions of roads and bridges, respectively, in Hazus–MH version
2.1 (DHS 2009). For the intensity measures in the fragility curves,

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ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng., 2022, 8(3): 04022037
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Fig. 4. Illustration of (a) Cascadia Subduction Zone (USGS 2020); and (b) Seaside, Oregon.
permanent ground deformation (PGD) and spectral acceleration
(Sa) were used for roads and bridges, respectively. The ground-
motion prediction equations (GMPEs) in Campbell and Bozorgnia
(2008) were selected to estimate the uncertain PGD at each road
site and uncertain Sa at each bridge site. In Hazus–MH version
2.1 (DHS 2009), five damage states (i.e., none, slight, moderate,
extensive, and complete) are defined for both roads and bridges.
According to US Census Bureau (2021), the residential population
of Seaside was 7,234 in 2021. However, the net daytime residential
population can decrease to about one-half of the population, and
can increase to more than 10,000=day in the peak summer when
tourists are taken into account (Sleeter and Wood 2006). To capture
the high population mobility, we considered ne to follow a normal
distribution truncated within (4,000, 15,000) with uncertain mean
μe and standard deviation (SD) σe due to the insufficient data; ne ¼
4,000 and ne ¼ 15,000 represent the smallest population and larg-
est population, respectively, due to population mobility. The pop-
ulation is distributed with uncertain proportions throughout the
three subareas, i.e., ρ1 , ρ2 , and ρ3 for the beach, downtown, and
residential area, respectively, and ρ1 þ ρ2 þ ρ3 ¼ 1. Here, ρ1 and
ρ3 were assumed to follow a normal distribution truncated within
(0.2, 0.6) and (0.25, 0.35), respectively, with corresponding mean
(μ1 and μ3 ) and SD (σ1 and σ3 ). In this context, the distribution
parameters θe ¼ ½μe ; σe ; μ1 ; σ1 ; μ3 ; σ3 .
In the EBM, xb ¼ ½t0 ; t; pc ; T 1 ; T 2 ; vp , where t0 denotes the
warning time (minutes); t is the departure time (minutes), pc rep-
resents the proportion of the evacuees that use cars in evacuation,
T 1 and T 2 are the thresholds used to determine the traffic stage
transition, vp denotes the pedestrian speed (meters=second). Warn-
ing time t0 was modeled by a uniform distribution on the interval
[3, 10] min. The interval [3, 10] was considered because (1) it is dif-
ficult to issue the local tsunami warning within 3 min (Takabatake
et al. 2018), and (2) the warning time can be as long as about 10 min
due to the complexity of issuing the warning of local tsunamis
(Dewi 2012). Parameter t was modeled by the Rayleigh distribution
with uncertain delay time τ and scale parameter σt (Wang and Jia
2021a). We considered τ to follow a uniform distribution on the
interval [0, 5] min; σt was assumed to follow a uniform distribution
on the interval [1, 5] min. Ultimately, 99% of the evacuees would
© ASCE 04022037-7
ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng., 2022, 8(3): 04022037
start their evacuation between about 6 and 28 min after receiving the
tsunami warning, which is relatively conservative compared with
about 30 min when the tsunami inundation reaches the shoreline.
Parameter pc was modeled by a normal distribution truncated within
(0, 1) (i.e., pc ¼ 0 and pc ¼ 1 correspond to all people evacuate on
foot and by car, respectively) with uncertain mean μc and SD σc due
to insufficient data. Thresholds T 1 and T 2 were considered to follow
a uniform distribution on the intervals [0.3, 0.7] and [1.1, 1.5], re-
spectively. The lower and upper bounds were estimated based on the
characteristics of roads/bridges and the space occupied by each car
and pedestrian. Parameter vp was modeled by a normal distribution
truncated within ð0.75; 3.83Þ m=s with uncertain mean μp and SD
σp . Here, we considered vp ¼ 0.75 m=s to be the lowest pedestrian
speed and 3.83 m=s to be the highest pedestrian speed (a fast run)
(Web Marketing Associates 2010). Parameter μp was considered to
follow a uniform distribution on the interval ½1.22; 2.68 m=s, where
1.22 and 2.68 m=s correspond to moderate walking speed (Langlois
et al. 1997) and running speed (Web Marketing Associates 2010).
We considered σp to follow a uniform distribution on the interval
½0.05; 1 m=s based on Fraser et al. (2014) and Yosritzal et al.
(2018). For the distribution parameters, θb ¼ ½τ ; σt ; μc ; σc ; μp ; σp .
In the EPM, xp ¼ ½hc , where hc is the critical depth (meters);
hc was considered to follow a uniform distribution on the interval
[0.5, 2] m. The lower and upper bounds were selected based on
the commonly used critical depths (Sugimoto et al. 2003; Yeh
2014).
The agent-based evacuation model was run in NetLogo with a
time step of 1 s (i.e., 3,600 time steps for each simulation). Table 1
summarizes the continuous input random variables (i.e., xi ) and as-
sociated distribution parameters, as well as the distribution (or epi-
stemic uncertainties) of the distribution parameters in the tsunami
evacuation simulation, where Uða; bÞ represents the uniform dis-
tribution on the interval between a and b. As described previously,
assumptions are made for some of the probability distributions due
to lack of real data for the low-frequency extreme event (earthquake-
induced tsunami), and complicated tsunami evacuation decision
and behavior. Furthermore, all the random variables were consid-
ered to be independent in this example. Most of the random var-
iables are indeed independent. Some of the other random variables
ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng.
 Table 1. Continuous input random variables and associated distribution parameters, and distribution (or epistemic uncertainties) for some distribution
parameters
xi Distribution Parameter 1 Parameter 2
ne Truncated normal μe ∼ Uð4000; 15,000Þ σe ∼ Uð3000; 7000Þ
ρ1 Truncated normal μ1 ∼ Uð0.2; 0.6Þ σ1 ∼ Uð0.05; 0.25Þ
ρ3 Truncated normal μ3 ∼ Uð0.25; 0.35Þ σ3 ∼ Uð0.05; 0.25Þ
t0 Uniform 3 10
t Rayleigh τ ∼ Uð0; 5Þ σt ∼ Uð1; 5Þ
pc Truncated normal μc ∼ Uð0; 1Þ σc ∼ Uð0.05; 0.25Þ
T1 Uniform 0.3 0.7
T2 Uniform 1.1 1.5
vp Truncated normal μp ∼ Uð1.22; 2.68Þ σp ∼ Uð0.05; 1Þ
hc Uniform 0.5 2
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may be dependent on each other; however, due to the lack of data which for each performance measure hi ðxÞ in the vector sam-
on their exact dependence or because the dependence is not ex- pling is needed from the corresponding joint auxiliary density
pected to be strong, these variables were assumed to be independent πi ðx; θÞ ∝ hi ðxÞfðxjθÞfðθÞ. This is done using the performance
for convenience of analysis. The meanings of the continuous input measures from the same set of simulations. Depending on the se-
random variables and associated distribution parameters are pre- lected performance measures, the sampling efficiency may be dif-
sented in Tables 2 and 3, respectively. Depending on the model ferent for different πi ðx; θÞ, and the simulation and sampling will
input (e.g., population size), the runtime for each simulation ranged continue until the desired number of samples nsi is reached for each
from 2 to 24 h of CPU time. πi ðx; θÞ. Then the corresponding samples can be used to estimate
For the risk consequence measure hðxÞ, we considered two cases. the sensitivity index for each of the performance measures with
In Case 1, hðxÞ was defined as the total casualty rate, i.e., the ratio of high efficiency. Ultimately the sensitivity indexes for all the perfor-
total casualties (including those evacuating on foot and by car) to mance measures can be established.
the total population, and the risk HðθÞ corresponded to the expected
total casualty rate. In Case 2, hðxÞ was defined as the indicator Results and Discussions
function, i.e., hðxÞ ¼ I F ðxÞ, where I F ðxÞ ¼ 1 if the casualty rate
exceeds a certain threshold, and 0 otherwise, and the risk HðθÞ cor- Case 1
responded to the failure probability PF ðθÞ. The risk sensitivity for To calculate the risk sensitivity indexes, ns ¼ 2,000 samples for
Case 2 corresponded to the reliability sensitivity. Furthermore, the ½x; θ were generated from πðx; θÞ by selecting the the prior density
sensitivity analysis could be performed efficiently for the case with as the proposal density [i.e., qs ðx; θÞ ¼ fðxjθÞfðθÞ]. This selection
multiple evacuation performance measures [i.e., hðxÞ is a vector- led to a sampling efficiency of about 36%, i.e., about 5,600 tsunami
valued function of x] using the augmented sample-based approach. evacuation simulations were used to generate these samples. Table 4
The approach still would require only one set of simulations, which presents the sensitivity analysis results, in which the first-order
will provide all the performance measures [i.e., the vector output Sobol’ indexes for all distribution parameters and higher-order
hðxÞ]. The only difference is in the stochastic sampling part, in Sobol’ indexes for some cases of interest (larger importance) are
the average values over 50 different runs using the augmented
sample-based approach. The COV for each MCS approximation
in the estimation of Sobol’ indexes was below 1%.
Table 2. Definitions of continuous input random variables Based on the first-order sensitivity results, μc had the greatest
xi Definition importance, followed by μe and τ , and other distribution parame-
ne Population size
ters had lesser importance. That μc had greater importance indi-
ρ1 Population proportion on beach cates that the epistemic uncertainty in μc has a higher impact on
ρ3 Population proportion in residential area the variability of the evacuation risk. Compared with evacuation
t0 Warning time on foot, evacuation by car is more likely to cause severe traffic con-
t Departure time gestion, which would delay the evacuation and cause more casu-
pc Proportion of evacuees that use cars alties. As μc increased (i.e., more cars and fewer pedestrians), the
T1, T2 Thresholds for traffic stage transition car casualty rate (i.e., the ratio of casualties that evacuate by car
vp Pedestrian speed to the total population) increased and the pedestrian casualty rate
hc Critical depth (i.e., the ratio of casualties that evacuate on foot to the total pop-
ulation) decreased. However, the increase of the car casualty rate
was much larger than the decrease of the pedestrian casualty rate,
Table 3. Definitions of distribution parameters for continuous input
which made the total casualty rate increases significantly with an
random variables increase of μc (Wang and Jia 2021b). In contrast, the total casualty
rate decreased significantly with a decrease of μc (Wang and Jia
θi Definition 2021b). That μe had relatively great importance can be explained
μe ; σ e Mean of ne ; SD of ne similarly, i.e., traffic congestion is sensitive to the population, which
μ1 ; σ 1 Mean of ρ1 ; SD of ρ1 ultimately leads to the large sensitivity of the total casualty rate to
μ3 ; σ 3 Mean of ρ3 ; SD of ρ3 the population. On the one hand, a larger population (i.e., a larger
τ ; σt Delay time; scale parameter value of μe ) tends to induce severer traffic congestion or even traffic
μc ; σ c Mean of pc ; SD of pc jams, which would delay the evacuation and lead to a higher eva-
μp ; σ p Mean of vp ; SD of vp
cuation risk (Wang and Jia 2021b). On the other hand, a smaller

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ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng., 2022, 8(3): 04022037
 Table 4. Sensitivity indexes for tsunami evacuation risk in Case 1 on the variability of the evacuation risk. For example, a larger pop-
Parameter Indexes ulation (i.e., ne ) with slower pedestrian speeds (i.e., vp ) would in-
crease the evacuation risk, whereas a smaller population with faster
First-order sensitivity indexes
τ 0.0095
pedestrian speeds would decrease the evacuation risk. In addition,
σt 0.0042 relatively weak interactions occurred related to μ1 and σ1 , and μ3
μe 0.0135 and σ3 , corresponding to the population proportion on the beach and
σe 0.0035 in the residential area, respectively. Only 4 of the top 20 second-
μ1 0.0062 order sensitivity indexes were related to μ1 and σ1 , or μ3 and σ3 .
σ1 0.0054 This indicates that, compared with some of the important distribu-
μ3 0.0043 tion parameters, the variability of the evacuation risk was not as sen-
σ3 0.0050 sitive to the population distribution throughout different subareas in
μc 0.1049
the communities in this example.
σc 0.0062
μp 0.0063
The preceding first-order and second-order sensitivity informa-
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σp
Second-order sensitivity indexes
μc ; σ c
μe ; σ p
τ ; σp
σt ; σ1
σ1 ; σc
σ t ; μc
σt ; σc
μ3 ; σ 3
μe ; σ c
τ ; σt
σ3 ; σp
μe ; μ3
σ t ; μe
σ t ; μp
μe ; μp
μe ; σ e
σc ; μp
σ1 ; μc
μe ; σ 3
μe ; μ1
population results in a lower evacuation risk (Wang and Jia 2021b).
Parameter τ represents the delay time after receiving a tsunami
warning, which could have a high impact on the evacuation. The
overall evacuation performance (i.e., casualty rate) easily can be
affected by the delay of evacuation (e.g., larger τ leads to more
delays), especially under a near-field tsunami that can reach the
shoreline in less than 30 min. Therefore, τ has a relatively high
impact on the variability of evacuation risk as well.
For the second-order sensitivity results, there were relatively
strong interactions related to the distribution parameters correspond-
ing to pc (i.e., μc and σc ), ne (i.e., μe and σe ), and t (i.e., τ and σt ).
Nineteen of the 20 highest interactions were associated with these
distribution parameters. On the one hand, strong interactions oc-
curred between the distribution parameters corresponding to pc ,
ne , and t. For instance, the strongest interaction was observed be-
tween μc and σc . As discussed in the first-order sensitivity results,
μc had the greatest individual importance, and car use (the distribu-
tion of which is defined by μc and σc ) in tsunami evacuation can
have a high impact on the evacuation risk; therefore the strong in-
teraction between μc and σc was anticipated. Similarly, both the in-
teractions between μe and σe (i.e., 0.0139) and between τ and σt
(i.e., 0.0147) were ranked among the top 20 second-order indexes.
On the other hand, strong interactions occurred between the afore-
mentioned distribution parameters and the distribution parameters
corresponding to the random variables other than pc , ne , and t,
especially μp and σp . For example, the second and third strongest
interactions were between μe and σp , and between τ and σp . This
was because μe and σp , or τ and σp together, can have a high impact
0.0044 tion (importance) can be used to prioritize the data collection for
more-effective epistemic uncertainty reduction, which further can
0.0215 support more-accurate risk assessment and more-effective evacu-
0.0210 ation planning. To reduce the epistemic uncertainty, the collection
0.0197 of data on the distribution parameters corresponding to pc , espe-
0.0194 cially μc, has top priority because the epistemic uncertainty in μc
0.0170 dominates the variability of the evacuation risk. In addition to μc
0.0169 and σc , it is recommended that it should be a priority to collect the
0.0165
data on the distribution parameters associated with ne and t due to
0.0158
0.0152 the individual importance of μe and τ , and the relatively strong
0.0147 interactions related to these parameters (i.e., μe , σe , τ , and σt ).
0.0147 When sufficient data on the important distribution parameters are
0.0147 available, the epistemic uncertainty is expected to be reduced ef-
0.0145 fectively and the evacuation risk can be assessed more accurately.
0.0143
0.0142 Case 2
0.0139 In this case, the performance threshold for failure was selected such
0.0138 that the average failure probability (i.e., μH ) was about 10%. Sim-
0.0136
ilar to Case 1, the prior density was selected as the proposal density
0.0136
0.0136
to generate the candidate samples, which then were used to obtain
the samples from πðx; θÞ through stochastic sampling. This led to
ns ¼ 1,000 samples being generated from about 10,000 tsunami
evacuation simulations, a sampling efficiency of 10% (i.e., equal
to μH ). No special effort was made to build a better proposal den-
sity that would lead to higher sampling efficiency; however, for
small failure probability (i.e., μH is small), to reduce the total num-
ber of simulations, more-advanced sampling techniques with well-
designed proposal density can be used [e.g., the approach in Jia et al.
(2017)]. Table 5 presents the first-order Sobol’ indexes for all dis-
tribution parameters and second-order Sobol’ indexes for some
cases of interest (larger importance). The COVs for all MCS ap-
proximations in the estimation of Sobol’ indexes were below 2%.
The first-order sensitivity results had some similar trends to
Case 1, e.g., μc was the dominant distribution parameter, followed
by μe. However, several differences were found in the sensitivity
indexes between Case 1 and Case 2:
1. The Sobol’ index value for μc in Case 2 (μc ¼ 0.5542) was
much larger than that in Case 1 (μc ¼ 0.1049). Because the
Sobol’ index values for μe were close for both cases (μe ¼
0.0193 in Case 2, and μe ¼ 0.0135 in Case 1), the much larger
value of μc in Case 2 indicates a greater impact of μc than of μe .
This is because the relative importance of μc was increased
in Case 2 due to the smaller average tsunami evacuation risk
(μH ¼ 10%) compared with that in Case 1 (μH ¼ 41.26%).
2. Parameter σt, rather than τ , had the third-largest importance,
although both corresponded to (or defined) the same random
variable t. This indicates that the epistemic uncertainty in σt
had a larger impact on the variability in the evacuation risk than
did τ in this case.
3. Parameter μ1 had relatively greater importance than the distri-
bution parameters other than μc , μe , and σt , which means that

© ASCE 04022037-9 ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng.

ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng., 2022, 8(3): 04022037
 Table 5. Sensitivity indexes for tsunami evacuation in Case 2 they can be used to guide the data collection prioritization for more
Parameters Indexes effective epistemic uncertainty reduction. In this case, it is recomm-
neded that priority in the data collection efforts should be given to
First-order sensitivity indexes
the distribution parameters corresponding to pc (especially μc )
τ 0.0028
σt 0.0157 rather than other distribution parameters, because the epistemic un-
μe 0.0193 certainty in μc dominates the variability in the evacuation risk.
σe 0.0002 According to the calculation of the first-order Sobol’ index for
μ1 0.0091 the distribution parameter θi, we know that the risk sensitivity with
σ1 0.0004 respect to θi also can be seen qualitatively from the comparison
μ3 0.0006 of fðθi Þ and πðθi Þ. A larger difference between two distributions
σ3 0.0005 indicates the greater importance of the distribution parameter.
μc 0.5542 Figs. 5(a–d) show samples for μc and μe from the corresponding
σc 0.0006
marginal auxiliary densities [i.e., πðμc Þ and πðμe Þ], the distribu-
μp 0.0011
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σp 0.0001
tions approximated based on the corresponding samples using
Second-order sensitivity indexes the boundary corrected KDE, and the corresponding prior distribu-
μc ; σ c 0.0561 tions [(i.e., fðμc Þ and fðμe Þ]. The value of πðμc Þ changed signifi-
μe ; μc 0.0362 cantly compared with that of fðμc Þ, which clearly demonstrates
μ1 ; μc 0.0281 why μc has great importance [Fig. 5(c)]. Similarly, comparison of
σ t ; μc 0.0242 πðμe Þ and fðμe Þ [Fig. 5(d)] demonstrates qualitatively the rela-
τ ; μc 0.0160 tively greatimportance of μe . The difference between the marginal
μc ; σ p 0.0156 auxiliary distribution and the corresponding prior distribution for
σ3 ; μc 0.0150 μc was much larger than that for μe, meaning that μc has much
μc ; μp 0.0136
greater importance than μe [which also is verified by their sensi-
σ1 ; μc 0.0105
μ3 ; μc 0.0101 tivity index values (Table 5)].
μ1 ; σ 1 0.0098 To provide additional understanding of the sensitivity analysis
μ1 ; μ3 0.0074 results, Figs. 5(e and f) show the variation of the integrand in the
τ ; σp 0.0052 calculation of the first-order Sobol’ index [i.e., Si in Eq. (10)] for μc
σt ; σp 0.0048 and μe , respectively. The integrand increased with μc , and it in-
μ1 ; σ c 0.0048 creased much faster under relatively large values of μc [Fig. 5(e)].
σ3 ; σc 0.0047 Overall, the integrand had much larger values when μc was large.
σc ; σp 0.0046 This indicates that relatively larger values of μc contribute more to
σc ; μp 0.0045
the first-order sensitivity index value or that the variability of the
τ ; μ1 0.0045
σ t ; μ3 0.0044
evacuation risk is more sensitive to the change of car use when a
relatively large number of cars are used in the evacuation. Compared
with the case in which a relatively small number of cars are used,
any change of the number of cars (either a decrease or an increase)
the variability of the evacuation risk was more sensitive to the could have a greater impact on the traffic congestion level when a
epistemic uncertainty in μ1 . This is because a larger population relatively large number of cars are used. The larger variability of the
proportion on the beach can lead to a higher evacuation risk, traffic congestion level ultimately would lead to a larger variability
whereas a lower population proportion would result in a lower in the casualty (evacuation risk) due to the evacuation delay caused
evacuation risk. by the traffic congestion. Fig. 5(f) for μe shows similar trends to
The second-order sensitivity results had some similarities to Fig. 5(e) for μc, e.g., the integrand increases with μe and relatively
those of Case 1. For example, most of the strong interactions were larger values of μe contribute more to the variability in the evacu-
related to the distribution parameters corresponding to pc , ne , and t, ation risk.
whereas the interactions related to the distribution parameters cor-
responding to ρ3 were relatively weak. The second-order sensitivity
results in Case 2 had some interesting differences from those in Conclusions
Case 1:
1. Parameter μc dominated the strong interactions. Of the 10 strong- This study investigated the sensitivity of tsunami evacuation risk
est interactions (i.e., Sobol’s index values between 0.0101 and with respect to various epistemic uncertainties in the distribution
0.0561), all were related to μc . This should be attributed to the parameters that define the probability distributions of the input
dominance of the impact of the epistemic uncertainty in μc on the random variables in the tsunami evacuation model. To simulate the
variability in the evacuation risk. evacuation process, an agent-based evacuation model was used.
2. There were relatively strong interactions related to μ1 . For ex- Probability models were used to quantify the epistemic uncertain-
ample, the third strongest interaction occurred between μ1 and ties in the distribution parameter. Then the variance-based sensitiv-
μc . This strong interaction was expected considering the indi- ity index, i.e., Sobol’ index, was used as the sensitivity measure to
vidual importance of both μ1 and μc in this case. The beach is quantify the importance of each distribution parameter and their
relatively far from the shelters (more than 1.5 km), so traffic interactions to the variability of the tsunami evacuation risk. The
congestion is more likely to occur on the long evacuation path augmented sample-based approach was used for the efficient cal-
when a larger population on the beach evacuates by car (corre- culation of the Sobol’ index for all distribution parameters (includ-
sponding to larger values of ½μ1 ; μc ), and the evacuation risk ing first-order and second-order indexes) in the risk sensitivity
will increase due to the evacuation delay. analysis using only one set of simulations.
After the importance of all considered distribution parameters As an illustrative example, the importance ranking of various
has been identified based on the risk sensitivity analysis results, distribution parameters associated with the tsunami evacuation risk

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ASCE-ASME J. Risk Uncertainty Eng. Syst., Part A: Civ. Eng., 2022, 8(3): 04022037
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Fig. 5. Illustration of (a) samples from πðμc Þ; (b) samples from πðμe Þ; (c) πðμc Þ estimated using boundary corrected KDE; (d) πðμe Þ estimated using
boundary corrected KDE; (e) variation of the integrand π2 ðμc Þ=fðμc Þ in calculation of Si for μc ; and (f) variation of the integrand π2 ðμe Þ=fðμe Þ in
calculation of Si for μe. All results are for Case 2.

of Seaside, Oregon was identified for two different cases (i.e., dif-
ferent definitions of the evacuation risk). The sensitivity analysis
results show that the distribution parameters corresponding to the
proportion of the evacuees that use cars, population size, and de-
parture time (especially the proportion of the evacuees that use cars)
have greater importance than those associated with other input ran-
dom variables. However, the exact importance ranking of various
distribution parameters can vary with cases depending on the risk
performance measure. The preceding risk sensitivity information
on the importance of distribution parameters can be used to priori-
tize data collection for an effective epistemic uncertainty reduction
and for a more-accurate risk assessment and more-effective evacu-
ation planning.
Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code that support the findings of this study are
available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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