Security and resilience take a holistic approach
Over half of the world’s population resides in urban areas, a trend that is expected to increase. Along with this is an increase in security and safety threats in urban areas, including urban built infrastructure. Large-scale urban built infrastructure (i.e. shopping centres/areas, sports venues or business centres with underground transportation nodes) is an important part of urban areas, and it not only includes physical components but also integrated hardware and software aspects. Until now a comprehensive and holistic approach for improving the resilience and security of large-scale urban developments against attacks had not been developed thoroughly. HARMONISE (Holistic approach to resilience and systematic actions to make large scale urban built infrastructure secure) was an EU-funded project that used a holistic view of innovation to increase security against threats in urban areas. Through the use of the HARMONISE Interactive Semantic Intelligence Platform, the researchers developed a systematic approach for security and resilience. Supporting tools of the platform were tested and enhanced through case studies. The Platform allows stakeholders to contribute and collaborate in the planning and design of urban built infrastructure. It provides a collection of the most relevant information on urban resilience by European experts, along with real-life knowledge from test cases. The HARMONISE Platform is structured by a thematic framework. The framework offers a ‘tagging’ system for all information and tools. This helps users obtain search results that are relevant to their specific needs. Eight additional tools were developed and are hosted within the online platform. Some of these include Planning and Design Guidance, Economic Evaluation, and the Multi-Building Integrator. Dissemination activities took place through an informal demonstration and several papers presented at conferences. The research can contribute significantly to safeguarding security within urban decision-making processes by delivering the required technologies and a holistic concept approach. National and local government authorities, utility, manufacturing, construction and engineering companies, and social and business communities can all benefit from the research.
Keywords
Security, resilience, urban areas, urban built infrastructure, HARMONISE
