Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, Washington, DC, USA.
Risk Anal. 2021 Aug;41(8):1323-1344. doi: 10.1111/risa.13630. Epub 2020 Nov 10.
Reliability of the air transportation system heavily depends on the performance of communication, navigation, and surveillance facilities in the National Airspace System (NAS). These facilities are prone to outages caused by convective weather, such as lightning. Current lightning safety standards and risk assessments focus solely on lightning occurrence and omit the effect of lightning intensity from hazard characterization. We propose methods that incorporate lightning intensity and occurrence parameters to better understand the impact of lightning strike on the NAS using the National Lightning Detection Network and Federal Aviation Administration NAS facilities and equipment outage databases. Spatial analysis and clustering reveal different exposure profiles for 436 U.S. airports. Kernel Density estimation and Hot Spot analysis show that regardless of lightning intensity, Southern state airports are the most exposed to lightning hazards. K-means clustering reveal five different lightning exposure profiles that mimic the spatial patterns produced by the Kernel Density estimation and Hot Spot analysis. A scoring system ranks all airports according to their exposure profile taking into consideration lightning occurrence and intensity. It is complemented with a rising trend exposure analysis, which identifies airports whose exposure could be underestimated under the current standards, identifying airports with fewer lightning occurrences but higher intensities. Finally, a comparison between the exposure patterns and lightning-induced outages provide insights into U.S. lightning impact patterns. Similar patterns between lightning exposure and outages indicate that the results of the proposed lightning hazard assessment provide useful information for prioritizing airport hardening investments at the national scale and reducing lightning risk.
航空运输系统的可靠性在很大程度上取决于国家空域系统（NAS）中通信、导航和监视设施的性能。这些设施容易受到雷暴等对流天气的影响，如闪电。当前的闪电安全标准和风险评估仅关注闪电的发生，忽略了闪电强度对危害特征的影响。我们提出了一些方法，利用国家闪电探测网络和联邦航空管理局 NAS 设施和设备停机数据库，结合闪电强度和发生参数，更好地了解闪电对 NAS 的影响。空间分析和聚类揭示了 436 个美国机场的不同暴露特征。核密度估计和热点分析表明，无论闪电强度如何，南部州的机场最容易受到闪电危害。K-均值聚类揭示了五个不同的闪电暴露特征，这些特征模拟了核密度估计和热点分析产生的空间模式。评分系统根据机场的暴露特征对所有机场进行排名，同时考虑闪电的发生和强度。它还补充了一个上升趋势暴露分析，该分析确定了在当前标准下可能被低估的暴露机场，这些机场的闪电发生次数较少，但强度较高。最后，闪电暴露模式与闪电引发的停机之间的比较提供了美国闪电影响模式的见解。闪电暴露和停机之间的相似模式表明，所提出的闪电危害评估结果为在国家范围内优先考虑机场加固投资和降低闪电风险提供了有用的信息。
