Urban Resilience
Urban systems are complex systems where different layers, from infrastructure to social and environmental, interact and are interconnected between each other. With growing population, urbanisation and urban redevelopment, increasing urban densities, and more intense and interdependent flows of energy and resources, making urban systems more resilient has become increasingly urgent and challenging. This is exacerbated by the speed and magnitude of climate change and exposure to more powerful natural and man-made hazards.
The objective of the “Urban Resilience” cluster is to enable the transformation of urban systems towards resilience, with specific interest in these questions:
- How do technological developments, urbanisation, and climate change affect the evolution of cities?
- How to design and implement technical interventions, formulate strategic guidelines, and develop public policies to increase the resilience of urban systems?
The cluster will develop models that not only integrate interdependent technological systems to simulate flows of resources and interactions with economic systems and networks, with nature and climate, and, most importantly, with individual citizens and societal groups.
The foundational models and enabling technologies developed will improve the understanding and evaluation of the urban resilience in the face of uncertainties. They will allow the design and implementation of changes at the neighbourhood, district, city and government scales, in order to transform these complex socio-technical systems to become more resilient against ambiguous and unexpected hazards in an actionable way.