Modelling of physical systems for resilience assessment

Natural hazards, such as earthquakes, floods, or storms may have significant socio-economic impacts in terms of injuries/ casualties, disruption of services, reconstruction costs, etc. They can also cause major accidents at hazardous industry (so-called Natech accidents). Earthquakes in particular are a major threat to communities in several parts of the world and a number of events that have hit densely populated areas or ones where significant economic activities were hosted, have shown that the consequences may be disproportionate to the damage of the built environment and that significant time and resources are necessary to regain pre-event conditions. The paper presents an overview of the latest developments in the modelling of critical infrastructure and the built environment for assessing their resilience to natural and man-made hazards, and climate change. It covers conceptual frameworks, tools and methods to design for resilience, interdependencies modelling as well as the links among technological and societal systems.