Analyzing city-scale resilience using a novel systems approach

The Sendai Framework serves to expand our understanding of disaster risk, complementing our increasing understanding of hazards with a deeper conceptualization of exposure and resilience. However the complexity of these concepts—and how to operationalize them in practice—is challenging. This chapter aims to explore what is missing from our current conceptualization of disaster risk and contribute one potentially powerful method to expand it: the abstraction hierarchy (AH). The AH captures the sociotechnical interactions between tangible and intangible aspects of a city, across multiple scales. Network metrics prioritize the critical system components at each level of scale, identifying which parts are most likely to cause a cascading effect through the rest of the city system, should they be removed by a hazard event. Here it is applied to two locations, with results reflecting differences in urban layout and changes between every day and flooded scenarios. This improved understanding of disaster risk will strengthen resilience and ease the negative effects of hazards—the central goal of the Sendai Framework.