Research theme
We develop integrated simulation and data environments that connect physical hazards, urban infrastructure, human movement, and decisions before and during disasters.
← Research overviewThe idea
For disaster risk reduction, a useful Digital Twin combines a representation of the physical environment with dynamic data, models, and decision processes. It should help users compare scenarios, identify bottlenecks, test interventions, and communicate options.
Our research connects the laboratory’s existing strengths in tsunami simulation, damage assessment, remote sensing, evacuation modeling, and high-performance computing.
Move from describing impacts after an event toward continuously testing how hazards, infrastructure, and people interact.
Integrated layers
Buildings, roads, terrain, coastlines, and facilities.
People-flow, traffic, sensors, weather, and communications.
Tsunami, damage, evacuation, congestion, and infrastructure scenarios.
Shelters, routes, warnings, signs, signals, and policies.
Plans, guidance, priorities, and evidence for action.
Building on current research
The laboratory’s tsunami work provides the hazard layer: rapid source estimation, inundation, worst-case scenarios, and damage estimation.
Agent-based evacuation models add the social and network layer, allowing interventions to be tested before implementation.
Remote sensing, mobile spatial statistics, and sensor data can support calibration, monitoring, and post-event assessment.