Strategic Positioning

1. A Scientific and Technological Support Platform for National Urban Resilience Governance

The Key Laboratory of Urban Lifeline Engineering Safety and Resilience will closely respond to major national needs concerning the development of urban safety systems, urban renewal initiatives, and multi-hazard risk prevention and control. It will focus on key issues related to the safety assurance and resilience enhancement of urban lifeline systems under the impacts of typhoons, floods, fires, and other hazards in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area.

The Laboratory will establish a complete technological chain comprising four interconnected levels: fundamental theory, core technologies, system integration, and engineering demonstration. Through this framework, it seeks to address systematic technological gaps in the development of resilient urban infrastructure in China. By bringing together universities, research institutions, leading enterprises, and government authorities, the Laboratory will develop a high-level scientific and technological platform integrating research and development, engineering demonstration, and policy support. It will serve major national strategies such as the coordinated development of urban agglomerations and digital urban renewal and become an important source of scientific and technological support for the modernization of urban safety governance.

2. A Globally Oriented Research Hub for Lifeline Engineering Resilience

The Laboratory will benchmark its research against advanced systems and experience in urban infrastructure resilience in Europe, North America, Japan, and other regions. It will focus on multi-hazard risk assessment, resilience-oriented system design, digital and intelligent platform development, and intelligent operation and maintenance, thereby promoting independent breakthroughs in key technologies and strengthening international collaboration.

By establishing an open global cooperation mechanism, the Laboratory will work with leading international universities, research institutions, and engineering organizations to conduct joint research and engineering practice. It will also actively participate in the activities of international standards organizations such as the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission. Through these efforts, it will promote the innovation and international application of China’s technological achievements in urban lifeline engineering, strengthen China’s influence and leadership in global infrastructure resilience research, and develop into an internationally influential research hub and technology transfer center.

3. An Integrated Platform for Technology Transfer and Industrial Incubation

The Laboratory will establish an innovation chain connecting fundamental research, technology development, demonstration and verification, standards development, and industrial application. By integrating the research strengths of universities, the engineering experience of enterprises, the practical needs of relevant industries, and the regulatory capabilities of government authorities, it will accelerate the transformation of scientific and technological achievements into practical productive capacity.

The Laboratory will develop a collaborative innovation mechanism driven by practical demand and characterized by joint research, rapid technology transfer, and large-scale application. Focusing on key fields such as monitoring and sensing, risk identification, and resilience assessment, it will conduct pilot-scale verification and demonstration of integrated system solutions. It will also establish a dedicated technology transfer platform to create a new innovation ecosystem in which technological development promotes engineering application and research platforms support enterprise incubation, thereby contributing to the upgrading of the urban resilience industrial chain in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area.

4. A Source of Core Technologies for Intelligent Operation and Maintenance of Urban Infrastructure

The Laboratory will seek breakthroughs in predictive maintenance, condition sensing, remote regulation, and coordinated optimization of urban lifeline infrastructure. It will promote the deep integration of multisource sensing networks, high-precision diagnostic models, digital and intelligent platforms, and artificial intelligence-based decision engines.

Through multisource heterogeneous data fusion and intelligent analysis, the Laboratory will develop a city-level intelligent operation and maintenance system for lifeline infrastructure with the capabilities of unified network-based management, integrated visual supervision, and rapid coordinated response. Through the systematic integration and application of technologies in representative demonstration projects, it will explore replicable and scalable approaches to intelligent operation and maintenance. These efforts will provide core solutions and decision support for the resilient operation of urban infrastructure and establish a safe, efficient, independently controllable, and future-oriented model for intelligent infrastructure governance.

Research Directions

1. Fundamental Theories of Urban Lifeline Engineering Safety and Resilience

To address existing theoretical challenges in the safety and resilience of urban lifeline engineering, the Laboratory will conduct research in three core areas: the identification of coupled hazard mechanisms, the development of system resilience assessment frameworks, and the modelling of post-disaster functional recovery.

At the hazard level, the research will focus on primary hazards such as typhoons, flooding, and fires, as well as secondary disaster scenarios including rainstorm-induced inundation, urban fires, and landslides. It will systematically reveal the chain-reaction mechanisms of multiple hazards and identify critical vulnerable components, thereby establishing a database of failure modes for urban lifeline engineering under compound hazard processes.

At the recovery level, the Laboratory will investigate functional recovery processes at different post-disaster stages and develop dynamic models of functional restoration. Intelligent optimization algorithms will be incorporated to formulate differentiated recovery pathways and strategies. The resulting research will establish a resilience theory framework integrating mechanism analysis, indicator-system development, and recovery modelling. This framework will explain failure mechanisms under disaster impacts and provide quantitative support for risk identification, emergency decision-making, and post-disaster recovery.

2. Development of Intelligent Sensing and Diagnostic Technologies

To address current deficiencies in intelligent sensing and diagnosis for urban lifeline engineering, the Laboratory will focus on three core areas: multiscale sensing networks, multisource heterogeneous data fusion, and the development of an intelligent operational diagnosis and intervention system.

At the sensing level, a multilevel and multiscale sensing network will be established to form a distributed three-dimensional perception system integrating satellite remote sensing, ground-based sensing, and embedded monitoring. At the data level, the Laboratory will investigate cross-modal and multidimensional heterogeneous data-fusion methods and develop a unified data governance and fusion platform with adaptive learning and error-correction capabilities.

At the analytical level, an intelligent diagnosis and intervention hub will be developed for structural health and overall system conditions. By integrating threshold criteria, deep-learning-based identification, and abnormal-evolution modelling, the system will enable the precise identification of risk points, prediction of risk trends, and closed-loop decision-making for proactive intervention. The Laboratory aims to maintain an early-warning accuracy of between 90% and 95%.

3. Risk Identification and Intelligent Decision-Making

To address deficiencies in safety risk identification and intelligent decision-making for urban lifeline engineering, the Laboratory will integrate multisource sensing data, advanced modelling methods, and intelligent risk diagnosis technologies to develop a systematic solution covering risk identification, scenario simulation, and intelligent scheduling.

For dynamic risk assessment, the Laboratory will develop spatiotemporal evolution models for multiple hazards covering the entire process before, during, and after a disaster. These models will support stage-specific dynamic risk updating and multiscale risk representation. A scenario simulation and decision-support platform based on multi-objective optimization will then be established to provide scientifically informed selections among alternative response strategies under different disaster scenarios.

The Laboratory will also develop response and scheduling algorithms with intelligent coordination capabilities. These algorithms will strengthen inter-system resource coordination and optimal allocation and establish a closed-loop optimization system connecting emergency planning, resource allocation, implementation, and performance feedback.

Through this research, urban lifeline engineering risk management will be transformed from static assessment to dynamic sensing, from isolated system evaluation to integrated cross-system assessment, and from experience-based scheduling to intelligent decision-making. This transformation will significantly improve the multi-hazard resilience of urban lifeline systems.

4. New Technologies for Resilience Enhancement, Strengthening, and Repair

To address the limited disaster resistance of existing urban lifeline engineering structures, inefficient post-disaster repair, and insufficient coordinated resilience among interconnected systems, the Laboratory will conduct systematic research in three core areas: resilience-oriented structural design, efficient post-disaster repair, and coordinated system-level resilience enhancement.

At the structural level, the Laboratory will investigate resilience-oriented design theories and rapid retrofitting technologies under multiple hazards and develop structural configurations characterized by redundancy and rapid recoverability. At the repair level, it will develop intelligent repair materials and automated construction technologies for high-risk post-disaster environments, enabling remote operations and efficient functional restoration.

At the system level, the Laboratory will propose strategies for coordinated resilience enhancement and emergency functional switching across interconnected systems. It will establish a lifecycle closed-loop improvement pathway covering pre-disaster preparation, emergency response during disasters, and post-disaster recovery.

Through this research, the Laboratory will develop an integrated resilience enhancement technology system encompassing structures, materials, and interconnected infrastructure systems. The resulting technologies will provide critical support for the safe operation, rapid recovery, and continued functionality of urban infrastructure in China.