Urban Resilience: A New Smart Cities Objective

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By Dominique Bonte | 1Q 2019 | IN-5357

Due to their very high population concentrations, cities are vulnerable to unpredictable disasters and catastrophes like earthquakes, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, flooding, food shortages, wildfires, hurricanes and typhoons, terrorist attacks, civil unrest, cyberattacks, war, diseases and epidemics, nuclear or chemical contamination, extreme air pollution, etc. The impact of these events on cities is two-fold:

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The Need to Make Cities Resilient 

NEWS


Due to their very high population concentrations, cities are vulnerable to unpredictable disasters and catastrophes like earthquakes, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, flooding, food shortages, wildfires, hurricanes and typhoons, terrorist attacks, civil unrest, cyberattacks, war, diseases and epidemics, nuclear or chemical contamination, extreme air pollution, etc. The impact of these events on cities is two-fold:

  • Direct and immediate loss of life
  • Challenges related to organizing relief response for survivors in the aftermath of these events in terms of evacuation, basic services, and medical care.This constitutes an extreme case of the demand-response challenge that cities already face in normal times, the severity of which directly relates to cities’ preparedness and responsiveness.

Awareness around the need for urban resilience is gaining momentum, especially as high-profile disasters continue to get wide media attention. Resilience is linked to very basic safety and security requirements and benefits of smart cities, but should really be seen as an extension of providing holistic protection and guaranteeing absolute peace of mind for all citizens. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines resilient cities more broadly as cities that have the ability to absorb, recover, and prepare for future shocks (economic, environmental, social, and institutional).

Resilience Approaches and Technologies: From Sensors to the Sharing Economy, AI, and 5G 

IMPACT


Predicting the unpredictable remains the biggest challenge for cities around the globe in order to build resilient urban environments. The failure to detect the cause of the recent tsunami in Indonesia (collapsing volcano wall several days after an eruption?) shows again how hard it is to predict even known phenomena like tsunamis, despite all the efforts and measures put in place in the wake of the devastating 2004 tsunami, which took more than 200,000 lives. Japan has deployed earthquake sensors in the seabed hundreds of miles off its coast to buy valuable warning time of up to one hour before a tsunami hits the coast. Flooding sensor solutions from suppliers like Bosch and Libelium allow early detection of rising water levels, allowing timely evacuation. In many cases, 30 minutes of upfront warning can be enough to save most, if not all, lives.

But just deploying a myriad of sensors is not enough. While real-time measurements might sometimes save lives, it is critical to attempt to predict natural disasters like earthquakes or extreme weather conditions. Advances in artificial intelligence and deep learning allow reliably predicting known and unknown phenomena by analyzing vast amounts of data from a large number of sources. Cities need to move away from just measuring and detecting disasters already in progress towards a holistic and inclusive monitoring and detection system. This will allow them to organize adequate and timely emergency response. This is already happening today with air quality monitoring systems supplied by Siemens supporting prediction “as a service,” estimating when air quality levels will exceed internationally agreed thresholds.

However important the role of detection and prediction is, the way that emergency response is organized will ultimately determine how many lives can be saved. At the most basic level, adequate warning/alert systems need to be put in place across various redundant communication platforms including smartphones, social networks, broadcast TV and radio, and sirens, in order to reach a maximum number of citizens in time. This needs to be combined with effective evacuation procedures with clear signs guiding citizens to safe locations. To avoid losing any time due to the manual intervention of human operators, emergency response needs to be automated whenever possible, starting with alerting systems directly linked to sensor readings in closed-loop configurations, while avoiding false positives as much as possible through sensor fusion of multiple independent measurements.

Following detection and alerting, rescue missions, relief response, and recovery need to be organized for the survivors. This is where the real challenge starts in terms of the availability of transportation, energy, housing, and medical care amidst an environment characterized by destroyed infrastructure (telecommunication networks, utilities, hospitals), limited accessibility, and contamination. This is where next-generation technologies and paradigms can be fully leveraged. From the role of 5G allowing prioritizing and guaranteeing communication capacity for emergency services, to the sharing economy allowing mustering additional resources for mobility, housing, energy, etc., the distributed nature of the sharing economy makes it inherently less vulnerable to disasters compared to centralized infrastructure (utilities, airports). Privately owned assets like cars, micro-grids, and home-based healthcare can be leveraged in times of distress, replacing and/or complementing centralized services. Of course, energy grids themselves also need to be converted into smarter and more resilient systems. Obviously, future airborne solutions like drones will provide critical capacity for transporting both goods and people. More generally, unmanned terrestrial robots will be deployed in dangerous environments for surveillance and rescue.

Awareness Building and Funding 

RECOMMENDATIONS


Diverting smart city funds away from the directly observable benefits of convenience and cost savings towards safety and security has always been a hard choice for city governments to make. It is an even bolder step to heavily invest in technology to protect cities against disasters that may never happen. However, attitudes are changing fast. Resilience is quickly becoming a key component of every smart city strategy.

In terms of funding, maximum advantage needs to be derived from either existing assets or planned technology deployments. Instead of building dedicated telecommunication networks for emergency services like FirstNet in the United States or setting aside Wi-Fi capacity for use during disasters in Tokyo, 5G holds the promise of being able to prioritize bandwidth and guarantee operation during catastrophic events. Similarly, the sharing economy can add capacity in times of distress at no incremental costs. There are already arrangements in place between Uber and cities to offer mobility for organized evacuation purposes. Similarly, Airbnb could make available additional accommodation to house evacuated and rescued citizens.

At the same time, requirements for any smart city technology like IoT platforms and smart utilities need to include resilience specifications in terms of redundancy, prioritization, robustness, and flexibility. Resilience shouldn’t just be an afterthought, but a top-of-mind concern for any activity or decision related to smart cities, from strategy to planning, funding, design, and implementation, representing one of the biggest challenges for city governments. It is also their most important political responsibility: protect citizens against unforeseeable threats. At the same time, the increasing importance of resilience constitutes an important additional incentive to accelerate the deployment of smart cities technologies and the adoption of next-generation urban design principles. More important yet, resilience requirements will force cities to reorganize into more horizontal structures, enabling coordination across departments, an imperative for effective disaster preparedness and responsiveness.

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