Network Resilience: Definitions, approaches, and applications

Abstract

Complex networks describe a wide range of complex systems in nature and society, and people are increasingly interested in network science. Network resilience is a significant concept for understanding how complex networks respond to change and for revealing their structures and characteristics. Meanwhile, network resilience also leads to different definitions of the concept of resilience and various approaches to measure the concept across multiple application fields. In this review, we summarize the recent developments of network resilience. We first classify complex networks and introduce the definitions of resilience in different research fields. We then review the approaches to evaluating network resilience, including qualitative assessment method and quantitative calculation method, and provide a detailed method framework for the measurement and evaluation of network resilience. Furthermore, we highlight the application in different fields from the perspective of network science, and we discuss the characteristics of resilience and the applicability of evaluation methods for different fields. Finally, we summarize the review and propose potential future research directions.