Spatial and Temporal Quantification of Community Resilience: Gotham City under Attack. (28th November 2017) - Mahmoud, Hussam
Abstract: Mitigating the impact of disasters on communities requires not only a deep understanding of the essential features of infrastructure, social, and economical components that make a community resilient; but also the development of mathematical models that can seamlessly integrate these features. This article lays the foundation for an integrative model that captures interaction between these components. The underlying fundamentals of the proposed model hinges on the principle of a damped harmonic oscillator by assuming the behavior of a community in response to a hazard is equivalent to the response of a vibrating mass of finite stiffness and damping. We implemented the dynamic model by developing a novel finite element formulation capable of quantifying resilience both temporally and spatially. We then used the developed model to devise a suitable hazard‐agnostic definition of community resilience. This was realized through a set of demonstration and logical verification tests conducted on Gotham City, the fictional city of the infamous character, Batman. It was observed that the model can be used to identify sensitive and vulnerable areas in a community, provide a spatial and temporal quantification of community resilience, and accommodate various types of hazards such as physical disruptions, economic downtimes, and even social disorders.