Assessing urban critical infrastructure using online gis and ann: An empirical study of bucharest city (romania)

Abstract

Critical infrastructure (CI) assessment is becoming a prominent topic for smart city, as it supports economic activity, governance and determines the quality of life. Due to their interdependence, the geographic location and effectiveness of CI components definitely determine the overall performance of urban system, so that any internal or external disturbance of one CI component could generate cascading failure and impact the whole urban activity. Nowadays, the explosion of urban infrastructure, the increased volume of extant data and technological advancements in ICT foster emerging smart critical infrastructure assessment solutions, adapted for various smart city requirements. While information related to CI is heterogeneous and multi-dimensional, it is a lack of studies exploring the potential of combined data-sources in modelling and assessing urban interconnected CIs. In this context, to better understand the holistic approach of CI and to support decision makers this paper proposes a framework for CI assessment, based on Geographic Information System (GIS) technology and artificial neural-networks (ANN) modelling. This framework envisages identifying urban sub-regions profiles as the first step in assessing resilient capacity of different urban areas. A case study of CI assessment accomplished for Bucharest city from Romania, is included.