Coupled Urban Change and Natural Hazard Consequence Model for Community Resilience Planning

Area of Science:

• Urban planning and natural hazard modeling
• Agent-based modeling for community resilience
• Socio-technical systems analysis

Background:

• Urban development and population growth increase vulnerability to natural hazards.
• Existing models often fail to integrate dynamic urban change with hazard consequences.
• Coastal communities face compounding risks from seismic-tsunami events.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel coupled model simulating urban change and hazard consequences.
• To assess the impact of diverse planning policies on community resilience.
• To identify effective strategies for mitigating risks in hazard-prone urban areas.

Main Methods:

• An agent-based land market simulates urban growth and building modifications.
• The IN-CORE (Integrated Kronos-based Open-source Resilience) model calculates built environment damages.
• Ten distinct planning scenarios were tested in Seaside, Oregon, considering seismic-tsunami hazards.

Main Results:

• Capping vacation homes increased visitor presence in damaged structures.
• Seismic retrofits alone did not reduce population in damaged buildings due to growth.
• Policy divergence occurred after 10 years, highlighting long-term implications.

Conclusions:

• Integrated policies combining urban planning and building codes are most effective.
• Urban planning and hazard mitigation require long-term, adaptive strategies.
• Modeling dynamic urban change is crucial for accurate hazard consequence assessment.