Risk Monitoring and Early Warning for Urban Critical Infrastructure: An Analytical Framework and Scenario Comparison

Main Article Content

Fanyun Meng

Keywords

urban critical infrastructure, risk monitoring, early warning systems, maturity assessment, scenario comparison

Abstract

Risk monitoring and early warning for critical urban infrastructure face challenges such as infrastructure interdependence, data heterogeneity, cross-system risk propagation, and incomplete response chains. Existing research has yielded substantial results in areas such as urban lifeline monitoring, infrastructure interdependencies, digital twins, and intelligent early warning systems; however, the disparities in early warning capabilities across different application scenarios remain insufficiently explained. Based on a review of representative literature, this paper constructs an analytical path of “object layer - monitoring layer - early warning layer - scenario layer”. Furthermore, it compares three categories of scenarios—flooding and urban drainage, road and rail transport, and energy storage, transport, and ports—across four dimensions: mechanistic clarity, data continuity, platform coupling, and closed-loop maturity. Research suggests that early warning capability does not depend on the specific name of an individual technology, but rather on whether the underlying risk mechanisms can be elucidated, whether monitoring data can consistently support the models, whether the model outputs can be integrated into platform rules, and whether the feedback from response actions can be used to iteratively refine the assessment process. This framework can serve as a reference for scenario assessment, system development, and the selection of technical roadmaps in the governance of urban safety risks.

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