Open research questions in Infrastructure Resilience and Vulnerability Analysis

What the literature leaves open

• The study faces challenges in terms of data completeness and consistency, particularly for the early 2000s. The complexity of multi-hazard situations poses a challenge for analysis and interpretation. The study must mitigate potential uncertainties arising from limited spatial coverage of meteorological stations.

  Impact-Based Analysis of Weather-Related Hazards in Greece (2000–2025): Insights from the High-Impact Weather Events Database (HIWE-DB) · 2026 · DOI

• Systematic long-term analyses of weather-related events and their associated impacts are limited. There is a need to systematically document weather and climate-related hazards and their impacts. The complexity of multi-hazard situations is not well addressed.

  Impact-Based Analysis of Weather-Related Hazards in Greece (2000–2025): Insights from the High-Impact Weather Events Database (HIWE-DB) · 2026 · DOI

• The lack of a common structure for using metrics together in planning, comparison, and metric construction. The fragmentation of metrics across different layers and boundaries, weakening cross-layer reasoning and making decision-traceable trade-off analysis difficult.

  A Unified Metric Architecture for AI Infrastructure: A Cross-Layer Taxonomy Integrating Performance, Efficiency, and Cost · 2026 · DOI

• The intricate role of hierarchy and directionality in network robustness. The need to develop a method that can effectively exploit hierarchical directionality in real-world networks. The challenge of identifying and removing critical nodes that disrupt the network's hierarchical structure.

  Optimal dismantling of directed networks · 2026 · DOI

• Existing dismantling methods often fall short in capturing the features of directed networks. There is a need for a method that can effectively exploit hierarchical directionality in real-world networks. The paper identifies a gap in the current understanding of how to dismantle directed networks.

  Optimal dismantling of directed networks · 2026 · DOI

• While the study offers valuable insights, future research should explore the application of simulation-based models, longitudinal assessments, and comparative analyses across different urban and seismic contexts to validate and refine mitigation strategies.

  A Statistical Prioritization Framework for Earthquake-Induced Urban Infrastructure Damage Factors and Mitigation Measures · 2026 · DOI

• Abstract Driven by the lack of global empirical data, there is limited research that analyzed the relationship between infrastructure damage and disaster impact.

  Bridging the gap between damaged infrastructures and disaster mortality · 2026 · DOI

• The current implementation of AI in disaster contexts lacks ethical safety measures. There is a need for a paradigm shift in humanitarian engineering to prioritize the requirements of frontline communities.

  Ethical AI for Disaster Resilience: Centering Frontline Communities · 2026 · DOI

• Conclusion From the perspective of complex networks, this study develops a two-stage urban resilience model inspired by the elastic deformation process and conducts robustness simulation experiments on the FIGURE 5 Attack simulation of homogeneous nodes. FIGURE 6 Attack simulation of heterogeneous nodes. mechanism (Equation 3). Once the calculated recovery time elapses, the node is reinserted to reflect its restored connectivity. Network efficiency is recalculated at each time unit to evaluate the overall system performance. The results of the attack simulations under heterogeneous conditions are presented in Figure 6. An interesting phenomenon emerges: although intentional attack initially target key nodes, causing a rapid decline in network efficiency, cities with higher node degrees demonstrate stronger resistance and recovery capabilities. Consequently, these cities require less time to reconnect with other nodes. As a result, the overall network recovers to its initial efficiency more quickly under intentional attack than under random attack. To verify the robustness of these findings, a sensitivity analysis was conducted by varying the shock magnitude F across multiple values (F ∈ {5, 6, 7} for the homogeneous simulation and F ∈ {10, 15, 20} for the heterogeneous simulation).

  A physics-inspired elastic deformation model for quantifying urban network resilience: resistance and recovery in the Yangtze River Delta · 2026 · DOI

• The existing methods have a robustness deficiency in incomplete information scenarios. There is a need to construct intelligent defense strategies with reasoning ability, adaptive update mechanisms, and attack prediction capabilities.

  Research on the Evolution of Oil and Gas Pipeline Network Attack and Defense Based on Reinforcement Learning and Game Theory · 2026 · DOI

• The paper addresses incomplete information scenarios in attack-defense interactions but does not specify the degree of information asymmetry tested, types of hidden state variables, or how performance degrades as information incompleteness increases.

  Research on the Evolution of Oil and Gas Pipeline Network Attack and Defense Based on Reinforcement Learning and Game Theory · 2026 · DOI

• The study identifies a gap in the current risk management approaches in Sustainable Urban Construction Projects. The gap is related to the limitations of conventional mitigation strategies in addressing structural complexities or external variables.

  Integrating Deterministic and Monte Carlo Approaches to the Risk Reduction Index for Sustainable Urban Construction Projects · 2026 · DOI

• The integration of Monte Carlo Simulation and deterministic approaches was applied only to an 11-risk taxonomy for a single urban construction context. Scalability assessment is needed to determine whether this hybrid RRI framework remains computationally feasible and statistically robust when applied to large-scale portfolios with 50+ interdependent project risks in different geographic or sectoral sustainable construction contexts.

  Integrating Deterministic and Monte Carlo Approaches to the Risk Reduction Index for Sustainable Urban Construction Projects · 2026 · DOI

• Integrating technical, cybersecurity, and human-related factors. Assessing and adapting functional stability under uncertainty and dynamic threats. Managing safety-critical infrastructure with limited data availability and heterogeneous influencing factors.

  Functional stability assessment and adaptation for critical infrastructure facilities · 2026 · DOI

• Existing approaches insufficiently integrate technical, cybersecurity, and human-related factors. There is a need for a holistic approach to assessing and adapting functional stability.

  Functional stability assessment and adaptation for critical infrastructure facilities · 2026 · DOI

• The need for integrated solutions in modern civil engineering. The importance of balancing environmental responsibility, user satisfaction, and long-term resilience.

  Sustainable Infrastructure Systems: Bridging Transportation Efficiency, Structural Resilience, and Environmental Management · 2026 · DOI

• The study is based on a single real-world applied case study from Algérie Télécom. The approach is evaluated on a limited number of instances (three sizes: 55, 90, and 150 customers). The study does not provide a comprehensive comparison with other state-of-the-art methods.

  A Three-Stage Approach for the Multi-Depot VRP with Priority Requests · 2026 · DOI

• Investigating the application of the proposed approach to other variants of the VRP. Exploring the use of other clustering methods and priority mechanisms. Conducting a more comprehensive comparison with other state-of-the-art methods.

  A Three-Stage Approach for the Multi-Depot VRP with Priority Requests · 2026 · DOI

• The study uses a static-dynamic hybrid approach, which may not capture emergent system behavior or feedback loops. The judgment matrix needs to be reconstructed if the consistency ratio is greater than 0.1. The study is based on a single case study of a new district in China.

  Risk-based sensitivity analysis of urban gas infrastructure in new district planning · 2026 · DOI

• Further studies can apply the framework to other districts or cities. The framework can be extended to include other factors that affect gas infrastructure resilience. The use of other methodologies, such as machine learning or optimization techniques, can be explored.

  Risk-based sensitivity analysis of urban gas infrastructure in new district planning · 2026 · DOI

• The study identifies a gap in the understanding of global inequalities in exposure to compound precipitation extremes. The research highlights the need for a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of compound climate extremes on transportation infrastructure.

  Inequities in the impacts of compound precipitation extremes on global transportation infrastructures in the late 21st century · 2026 · DOI

• The paper suggests that future research should focus on developing more comprehensive and interdisciplinary approaches to understanding resilience. It highlights the need for more research on the measurement and evaluation of resilience. The paper also notes the importance of considering the social and cultural aspects of resilience in future research.

  Editorial: Enhancing resilience in complex systems: transdisciplinary and systems approaches to sustainable infrastructure and urban development · 2026 · DOI

• The paper identifies a gap in the current understanding of resilience, particularly in terms of its measurement and evaluation. It notes the lack of consideration of multiple disciplines and approaches in current research on resilience. The paper highlights the need for more comprehensive and interdisciplinary approaches to understanding resilience.

  Editorial: Enhancing resilience in complex systems: transdisciplinary and systems approaches to sustainable infrastructure and urban development · 2026 · DOI

• The need to understand the resilience of the construction industry ecosystem in the face of external shocks and changes. The lack of a comprehensive framework for analyzing the ecosystem's evolutionary state and diverse paths toward high functionality.

  A Study on the Measurement and Evolutionary Dynamics of Resilience in the Construction Industry Ecosystem: A Mixed Method Analysis Based on Cusp Catastrophe Model and fsQCA · 2026 · DOI

• There is no sound tunnel construction resilience evaluation indicator. Prior research has limitations, such as focusing too much on economic benefits or involving too many evaluation indicators.

  A Study on Resilience Evaluation of Tunnel Construction Based on Mixed Methods · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Infrastructure Resilience and Vulnerability Analysis

• Systems Resilience for Multihazard Environments: Definition, Metrics, and Valuation for Decision Making · Risk Analysis · 2013 · 535 citations
• On the Definition of Resilience in Systems · Risk Analysis · 2009 · 533 citations
• Integrating Risk and Resilience Approaches to Catastrophe Management in Engineering Systems · Risk Analysis · 2012 · 479 citations
• Identifying Critical Infrastructure: The Median and Covering Facility Interdiction Problems · Annals of the Association of American Geographers · 2004 · 315 citations
• Representing perceived tradeoffs in defining disaster resilience · Decision Support Systems · 2010 · 308 citations
• On Some Recent Definitions and Analysis Frameworks for Risk, Vulnerability, and Resilience · Risk Analysis · 2010 · 298 citations
• Resilience metrics for cyber systems · Environment Systems & Decisions · 2013 · 288 citations
• Cross-impact balances: A system-theoretical approach to cross-impact analysis · Technological Forecasting and Social Change · 2005 · 282 citations
• Resilience metrics and measurement methods for transportation infrastructure: the state of the art · Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure · 2018 · 267 citations
• Resilience analysis: a mathematical formulation to model resilience of engineering systems · Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure · 2017 · 250 citations

Most recent work

• Advancing Systemic Risk Assessment for Complex, Interdependent Systems: A Research Agenda · Risk Analysis · 2026
• Resilience analysis for energy foresight scenarios: addressing the deep uncertainties of hydrogen deployment in industrial hubs · Energy Policy · 2026
• Resilience assessment and enhancement of urban transportation interdependent network under cascading failure · Reliability Engineering & System Safety · 2026
• Regional transportation network resilience under climate risk propagation and coordinated recovery: A city-node functional network perspective · Habitat International · 2026
• Safety-oriented management of protection projects of critical infrastructure objects · Management Theory and Studies for Rural Business and Infrastructure Development · 2026
• Thermal Resilience of Residential Buildings Under Climatic Extremes and Power Outages: An Integrated Review of Metrics, Passive Mechanisms, Energy Systems, and Design Frameworks · Energies · 2026
• A Bayesian Network-based system framework for seismic resilience assessment of nuclear power plants · Annals of Nuclear Energy · 2026
• Resilience-driven reinforcement and restoration decision under uncertainty for the interdependent transportation-healthcare system · Reliability Engineering & System Safety · 2026
• Travel time resilience of national multimodal transport systems under extreme events: A passenger-oriented framework · Reliability Engineering & System Safety · 2026
• A review of hospital seismic resilience enhancement strategies and technologies: State of the art, challenges, and future · Reliability Engineering & System Safety · 2026

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