Measuring Urban Infrastructure Resilience via Pressure-State-Response Framework in Four Chinese Municipalities

Min Chen,Endong Wang,Yu Jiang,Jun Zhang,Yi Wang

doi:10.3390/app12062819

Min Chen, Endong Wang + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/app12062819

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Abstract

Urban infrastructure (UI), subject to ever-increasing stresses from artificial activities of human beings and natural disasters due to climate change, assumes a key role in modern cities for maintaining their functional operations. Therefore, understanding UI resilience turns essential. Based on the Pressure-State-Response (PSR) model, this paper built a comprehensive evaluation index system for urban infrastructure resilience evaluation. Four municipalities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing in China, were selected for the case study, given their specific significance in terms of geographical location and urban infrastructure scale. Temporal differences of UI resilience in those four cities during 2002–2018 were explored. The results showed that: (1) The various stages of PSR relative importance for the urban infrastructure resilience development in the four cities were different. The infrastructure status, primarily resource environmental benefit, had the most significant effect on urban infrastructure resilience, accounting for 38.73%. (2) While Shanghai ranked first, the levels of urban infrastructure resilience in four cities were generally poor in 2002–2018 with continuously low resilience. (3) Significant differences were found in the resilience levels associated with the three stages of pressure, state and response failing to form a positive development cycle, with the poorest pressure resilience. This paper puts forward some recommendations for providing scientific support for urban resilient infrastructure development in four municipalities in China.

Highlights

The fan-shaped area angle corresponding to total sewage discharge and urbanization rate is significantly larger than other indicators, demonstrating that both are more dangerous factors from human activities to Urban infrastructure (UI)
Based on the PSR model for UI resilience of four municipalities in China, we found that all cities were continuously at low resilience from 2002 to 2018, even showing a slight downward trend
The benefit of per capita water resources was the most obvious, while it was determined by local nature, leading it challenging to improve state resilience

Summary

Introduction

With the rapid growth of industrialization and urbanization, Chinese cities have gradually become the leading carriers for significant populations to settle. The city size has been expanding quickly. In China, the urban population quintupled from 170 million in 1978 to more than 850 million in 2020. The urbanization rate has nearly quadrupled during that period, from 18% in 1978 to over 60% in 2020, and is expected to reach 75% or even 80% by 2035 [1]. The Chinese government has maintained the growth rate of economic investment in UI development has been maintained at around 20% by Chinese government. The scale of UI has increased substantially, establishing relatively complete urban infrastructure systems in cities. “urban diseases” have been increasingly emerging, especially in metropolis [2], such as traffic congestion, urban pollution, and poor disaster resilience, indicating that infrastructures’

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