Urban resilience framework: A network-based model to assess the physical system reaction and disaster prevention

Abstract

Comprehensive resilience management schemes are vital to urban risk governance and sustainable development. In this study, we decompose the urban physical system into the built environment subsystem (BES), information subsystem (IS), and metabolic flow subsystem (MFS), then construct a microscopic mechanism model of the urban system to quantify urban resilience, characterize the dynamics of urban resilience, and analyze the effect of network topology on urban resilience with the complex network method. The results provide several points: (1) There is a tipping point of the system, which crashes at 104.74% times the observed shock intensity in the case of Typhoon Morakot, taking the model parameters unchanged; (2) The topology of resource allocation network has a significant effect on urban resilience; (3) The externality of subsystem varies with the losses caused by negative shocks; and (4) The effects of network topology are contingent on the levels of urban resilience; therefore, for emergency management, city managers need to select resource allocation strategies based on urban resilience, by balancing the functional levels of operational and defensive parts. This study proposes a set of integrated management solutions based on resource deployment relationships among subsystems that can help urban systems better cope with shocks and increase resilience.