Building Urban Resilience

Motivation

Climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme hydro-climatic events, worsening floods and water scarcity in tropical and subtropical regions.
The IPCC predicts a 3.5% increase in precipitation-related extremes for every additional 0.5°C of global warming.
Urbanization in some regions has intensified climate change impacts, leading to increased flooding and water scarcity by encroaching on essential natural drainage systems and relying heavily on inefficient water sources.
Current water resource management, focused on a linear approach without reuse or recycling, exacerbates water scarcity.
Inefficient flood management leads to increased property damage, infrastructure degradation, and higher maintenance costs.
Data-driven solutions and integrated models are essential for better flood prediction and adaptive management, but lack of model integration hampers comprehensive understanding of system interactions.

About

This multi-disciplinary project aims to develop an intricate city-scale digital twin, unifying diverse system models such
as hydrological, hydraulic, water resource management, resilience, and governance for augmenting disaster response to urban water-related extremities. We aspire to hone predictive accuracy of system behaviour during hydrological extremes and boost urban resilience by utilizing complex system modelling and integrating human behavioural aspects into the digital twin.

Ambitious Path to Urban Resilience

Smart Cities

The project will develop a highly accurate, interactive digital twin that replicates a city's urban topography, infrastructure, hydrological patterns, and human behaviors, facilitating better flood resilience.

Participatory Governance

This project will transform flood management strategies by empowering urban planners, policymakers, and researchers to make data-driven decisions, leading to more accurate and efficient flood response.

Social Resilience

The ultimate goal is to enhance disaster response mechanisms and strengthen urban resilience, contributing to global knowledge that can be applied by other cities facing climate-induced hydrological extremes.

Climate Adaptation

The project focuses on using innovative tools to strengthen urban climate adaptation efforts. This technology allows cities to anticipate and manage the impacts of climate change more effectively.

News

Resilient HydroTwin researcher wins Best paper award on Climate Change Governance!

20 Mar 2025 15:56

We are proud to share that Erica Arango, coordinator and postdoctoral researcher in the Resilient HydroTwin project, has been awarded the Best Paper Award on Climate Change Governance 2024 by the TU Delft Climate Action Programme!

ResilientHydroTwin Project kicked off under NWO-DST Water Disaster Management (WDM)

21 Nov 2024 12:46

ResilientHydroTwin is one of three projects awarded under the Water Disaster Management (WDM) program, a collaborative effort between India and the Netherlands facilitated by the NWO-DST Merian cooperation. These three projects convened for a joint kickoff ceremony at the NWO offices in Utrecht, Netherlands, from October 15th to 17th, 2024.

Resilient HydroTwin - Kickoff Workshop

9 Sept 2024 11:39

We are excited to announce the successful kick-off of our innovative project on June 18! This ambitious initiative aims to enhance urban resilience and transform disaster response strategies through cutting-edge digital twin technology.