Similar expansions of sensing are also underway in cities and these enable understanding of Urban Systems. The massive expansion of geophysical sensing, which began some 50 years ago with satellite imaging of the Earth, and of our ability to capture such information through the Internet of Things and to analyse it with the algorithms and computational power of Data Science have the potential to transform our approaches to natural disaster risks.
This article describes new methods to enable urban and regional communities to improve their resilience to such events. Both as individuals and communities we do a poor job of understanding risks and the associated costs.
We mitigate or adapt to other risks to avoid disaster, but this entails an opportunity cost. We accept some risks, because, if we succeed in avoiding disaster, we may achieve some desirable outcome. We do this as individuals and as members of communities. How long and how well we live depends in large part on how we recognise risks and mitigate and adapt to them. No human life is free of risk and in the end we all die. The government sector at local, regional, and national levels as well as the private sector, notably insurance companies, has strong interests in developing such tools. Such work has only recently begun and there are great opportunities to apply techniques of Simulation Modelling, not only for academic interest, but in order to reduce the exposures of lives and property to these risks. This article considers how the mitigation of and the adaptation to the risks of natural disasters in cities and regions can be strengthened through the application of Systems Science perspectives and Systems Engineering methods building on the Internet of Things, analytical and modelling techniques from Data Science, and general developments in Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
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