Susceptibility,vulnerability,and averaged risk analysis for resilience enhancement of urban areas

Abstract

The dynamic growth and evolution of urban areas generate new challenges for safety and security driving societal, economic, and ecological developments at local and worldwide levels. Cities comprise a high degree of critical infrastructure with an increasing complexity and interdependency. In addition, modified and new threats ranging from natural to man-made and malicious hazards ask for more robust and sustainable cities. This work combines and extends existing empirical, engineering, and simulative methods to define and determine quantities for resilience assessment of urban areas in a comprehensive approach. Based on a multitude of possible events in a city quarter with a larger number of infrastructures, susceptibilities, vulnerabilities, and averaged risks are analyzed in a systematic and quantitative way. The use of an established empirical-historical database gives first insights to identify susceptible elements or endangered areas in the considered urban environments. It is coupled to an approach for consequences where state-of-the-art physical-engineering hazard and damage propagation and quantification models are integrated for vulnerability assessment. The consideration of multiple threats and multiple possible locations cumulates in an object- and location-dependent quantification of averaged risks to visualize the most critical regions and infrastructure aspects in densely populated areas. In this article, the approach is exemplarily applied to terroristic threats. The integration of the three-dimensional visualized approach into existing risk assessment and management processes will help to create cities that are more resilient.