Resilient city construction is crucial for the modernization of the national security system and governance capabilities, and digital intelligence technologies are key drivers to achieve urban resilience. Guided by practical demand for digital intelligence technologies in resilient city construction in China, this study analyzes the major development directions of resilient city construction in China and abroad, and outlines the prominent issues and challenges faced when using digital intelligence technologies to improve resilient city construction. In response to these key issues, the study proposes a development approach, strategic framework, and strategic goals for resilient city construction, focusing on technological development directions in areas such as theoretical optimization, data governance, technological innovation, and equipment management. Finally, development recommendations are proposed from the perspectives of scientific research, policy support, and industrial development, providing a systematic plan and scientific support for improving urban resilience through digital intelligence technologies in China.
Currently, global climate change is intensifying, extreme natural disasters occur frequently, and the corresponding impacts exhibit characteristics of cross-domain and cross-regional systemic risks, posing new and significant challenges to urban safety governance. Therefore, it is urgently needed to assess the current status and development trends of systemic risk prevention and control and safety resilience construction in cities of China, and to construct a future-oriented technological development framework. The study analyzes major challenges regarding resilient urban governance in China from four dimensions: management decision-making, grassroots implementation, social collaboration, and critical regions. Moreover, it reviews the current theoretical research on urban safety resilience and the progress of technology application in China, and then clarifies the key areas for technological breakthroughs. A decision-making model that integrates emergency management and business continuity management is also proposed, supporting the construction of a resilient technology path that involves three dimensions: perception, cognition, and decision-making. Furthermore, the study proposes the leading directions for promoting the construction of resilient cities in China: application of artificial intelligence and unmanned equipment, development driven by digital twin, sustainable development promotion, integration of technology and management, and cross-disciplinary collaborative innovation. These directions are expected to provide a theoretical basis and technical guidance for enhancing disaster prevention and control capabilities, strengthening system resilience, and ensuring safe operation of cities.
In the context of rapid urbanization and environmental changes exacerbated by extreme climates, cities are increasingly confronted with risks and challenges, making safety and resilience the focus of urban planning, construction, and governance. Safe and resilient urban planning is not only a specialized plan centered on disaster prevention and mitigation, but also an overall enhancement of safety and resilience in urban planning and design. Facing the problems of and demand for stock development of cities in China and based on a "risk source ‒ exposure ‒ mitigation" urban safety framework, this study proposes theoretical principles and a logical framework of safe and resilient urban planning and design. It constructs a three-dimensional thinking structure encompassing "system ‒ time ‒ space" and proposes a three-pronged practical pathway consisting of "technical methods, planning content, as well as policies and regulations." Furthermore, the study expounds on the technical route for the transformation from basic theory to practical application, advocating that safe and resilient urban planning and design should be guided by the principle of "adapting to risks and integrating form with data." The strategic objective is set as "tolerating moderate pressure and achieving rapid recovery," accompanied by a comprehensive methodology and technical toolkit that emphasizes precise adaptation and data-driven shaping. It is hoped to establish an underlying logic for safe and resilient urban planning and provide fundamental strategies for urban safety governance.
Safety resilience is the premise of urban construction, and creating a safety resilience planning methodology with multi-scale linkage is of great scientific significance for enhancing the overall resilience of cities and promoting high-quality urban development. This study is based on national and regional perspectives, focusing on the adapting mechanism between urban space development and safety risks. It analyzes the characteristics of safety risks at different spatial levels and establishes a safety resilience planning framework that integrates regions and cities as well as a precise adaptation resilience-planning technology system. Additionally, three key technologies are explored, including accurate analysis of the safety resilience background, generation of resilience planning tailored to local conditions, and dynamic assessment of intelligent responses. Five first-class and 18 second-class national safety resilience construction mode zones are also established, along with a density‒scale dual-control index system and key thresholds tailored to different regions. This method has been applied in planning practices such as the Beijing‒Tianjin‒Hebei regional planning and the reconstruction of Zhouqu (a city in Gansu Province) after a massive mudslide, providing scientific solutions for preventing safety risks in urban construction from the source and enhancing the overall resilience of cities.
Amid increasingly frequent extreme natural disasters, highly interconnected urban systems, and mounting operational pressures, enhancing the safety and resilience of urban infrastructure has become a vital strategy for safeguarding national security and advancing sustainable development. However, a significant gap persists between the current state of resilience-related technologies and the practical demands of building resilient cities, highlighting the urgent need for a systematic review of relevant technical systems and recent research progress. This study analyzes the current state and future development trends of urban infrastructure resilience technologies across five key domains: natural disaster forecasting and early warning, infrastructure vulnerability and risk assessment, functionality degradation and resilience evaluation, resilience enhancement and design, and emergency response and decision-making optimization. The study finds that while resilience-based disaster prevention has shifted the focus of infrastructure safety from structural robustness to system-level functionality and post-disaster recovery, and intelligent disaster prevention has greatly enhanced the efficiency and accuracy of disaster sensing, forecasting, and emergency response, several major challenges persist. These challenges include the absence of unified standards for resilience technologies, insufficient multi-hazard joint modeling, weak cross-system coordination, poor generalization and interpretability of intelligent models, and limited transparency in decision-making processes. Looking ahead, a key development trend will involve building a unified theoretical framework and standardized system for infrastructure safety and resilience. This should be supported by an intelligent technology system characterized by data empowerment, language-driven interaction, and cognitive reasoning, facilitating multi-source data fusion, cross-modal knowledge transfer, multi-hazard joint assessment, system-level coordination, and high interpretability with transparent mechanisms. Furthermore, the study offers development recommendations from the aspects of institutional support, intelligent enablement and resource allocation, as well as technical standardization, aiming to provide theoretical foundations and practical guidance for systematically enhancing urban infrastructure resilience in China.
The ongoing technological revolution and industrial transformation not only provide robust momentum and a supportive platform for societal development, but also introduce a series of new risks to national security and urban safety governance. These new urban risks are characterized by unfamiliarity, high uncertainty, and dynamic evolution, and the research system for traditional urban risks can no longer meet the needs of new risk governance, necessitating a research paradigm and knowledge system for new urban risks. This study analyzes the conceptual evolution and research status of new urban risks in China and abroad, and examines the challenges faced in current new risk governance. Based on the “risk source‒risk exposure‒mitigation force” theory for urban safety, it constructs an identification and classification framework for new urban risks, and from the perspective of driving factors, proposes seven major types of new urban risks that need attention at present, namely climate change, new material, new energy, new information technology, new biomedicine, new spatial structure, and new business form risks. To address the challenges brought by these new urban risks, the study suggests strengthening top-level design to deepen theoretical research; enhancing crisis awareness to build a new risk working mechanism; promoting the coordinated evolution of technological innovation and risk governance while balancing safety and development; and improving the standards system to establish a multi-subject collaborative governance framework, thereby promoting the construction of safe and resilient cities.
As global climate change and urbanization processes accelerate, the risks of compound disasters have significantly increased, rendering traditional disaster prevention facilities inadequate for meeting emergency demands under extreme scenarios. The “dual-use for normal and emergency situations" concept refined from China's pandemic prevention and disaster mitigation experiences provides innovative solutions to resolving the inherent conflict between the functional rigidity of urban spaces and the flexibility required for emergency responses. This study addresses the requirements for national space security and resilient city construction, focusing on theoretical framework development and practical implementation pathways for coordinated dual-use planning of urban underground spaces. By drawing on relevant construction experiences both in China and abroad, this study analyzes the development context and research progress of the dual-use planning and construction of urban underground spaces. It aims to optimize the layout of underground spaces, enhance their utilization efficiency, and strengthen cities' capabilities in responding to emergencies. A dynamic coupling mechanism between dual-use functionalities and underground space systems is proposed, and an integrated framework for dual-use urban underground space development is established. The research explores planning pathways for urban underground spaces under the dual-use concept from three dimensions: spatial governance, planning and design, and operational systems. This study provides theoretical support and methodological pathways for integrating underground space construction with the dual-use paradigm, and offers transferable pathways for integrating the dual-use concept with other specialized urban planning systems in China.
The development of underground spaces in megacities is crucial for alleviating urban land pressure, optimizing transportation, and enhancing resilience. However, under the dual pressures of global climate change and rapid urbanization, the traditional concept of engineering resilience struggles to address challenges such as the complexity of underground space systems, multi-hazard coupling, and intelligent data processing. Consequently, a shift toward an AI-enabled intelligent resilience concept, focusing on resilient prevention and mitigation of disasters, has become an imperative direction for future development. This study first categorizes the types of disasters faced by underground space systems in megacities and elaborates on the concept of intelligent resilience for such systems. It then identifies key scientific and technological issues involved in developing intelligent resilience. Subsequently, the study analyzes the current state and existing problems in intelligent resilience development across several dimensions: spatiotemporal distribution of disaster types and intensities; theories for failure mechanism analysis and resilience assessment; synergistic material-structural systems; comprehensive sensing technologies and high-fidelity databases; and AI-driven autonomous decision-making and intelligent evolution. Furthermore, a multi-dimensional collaborative management and control framework based on the integration of physical, information, and simulation domains with dynamic real-time data interaction is constructed, which clarifies the implementation pathways for the intelligent resilience systems of underground space in megacities. Finally, the study recommends strengthening comprehensive safeguards across physical, information, and simulation domains to construct an integrated support system, thereby promoting the orderly and efficient advancement of intelligent resilience in megacity underground space systems.
Urban underground space (UUS) is rapidly evolving from a "supplementary space" into a "fourth national territory" that supports the high-quality development of future cities. However, UUS faces key challenges, including lagging spatial planning, insufficient human-centered design, low environmental quality, and limited technological integration. In this context, architecture, as a discipline centered on human habitation and spatial design, plays a pivotal role in enhancing the quality, adaptability, and sustainability of underground environments. This study defines the research scope of UUS from an architectural perspective, identifies its strategic importance and development drivers, and reviews both international research progress and the developmental trajectory of underground architecture in China. It proposes a three-dimensional research framework centered on "multi-layer planning, spatial creation, and technology integration and evaluation", and highlights critical research topics that need breakthroughs, covering spatial strategies for intensive and coordinated development, human-centered design approaches, digital support tools, and scientific evaluation systems. Furthermore, the study explores methodological innovations and application pathways, such as architect-friendly simulation tools for early design stages, multidimensional perception-based built environment evaluation methods, optimization of UUS safety resilience and peacetime-wartime transition mechanisms, and intelligent operation and maintenance technologies for UUS. By establishing architectural theories and design systems for complex systems, advancing the use of deep UUS, exploring human-centered and resilient design, improving multidimensional evaluation systems and standards, and promoting performance-driving architectural design integrating simulation, optimization, and evaluation, this study can provide a comprehensive foundation for the high-quality and sustainable development of future UUS.
The Jiziwan region, situated in the Yellow River basin, serves as an energy resource-rich region and an ecological barrier in China. It is also a convergence zone for multiple national major projects. However, water scarcity remains the primary constraint for ecological conservation and high-quality development in the region. Based on an optimal water resource allocation scheme for water-receiving areas of the Western Route of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project, accelerating the construction of the overall water network structure in the Jiziwan region is critical to addressing the bottleneck related to water resources. This study reviews the current status of water diversion and transfer projects in the Jiziwan region, and identifies the interconnections and competitive-complementary effects among key projects. It also analyzes decentralized and centralized gravity-fed water supply schemes, and proposes an integrated centralized‒decentralized optimization strategy for the regional water network. Proposal for optimizing the integrated water network configuration in the Jiziwan region through utilizing allocated water resources from the Western Route of the South-North Water Transfer Project is put forward. The resulting framework establishes a three-tier water network system in the Jiziwan region: The Jiudianxia‒Wuding River centralized water supply project and the mainstem of the Yellow River form the "backbone"; the Guxian water supply, Heishanxia water supply, and other Yellow River diversion projects act as "branches"; and high-standard silt-trapping dams (with anti-breaching capacity, water storage, and sediment retention functions) along with small-to-medium reservoirs serve as "nodes". This layout can fully leverage existing and under-construction water supply projects across provinces in the Jiziwan region, ensures efficient gravity-fed operation, and offers advantages such as strong regulation capacity, high water source reliability, and low engineering costs, which provides a valuable reference for advancing high-quality water network construction in the Jiziwan region.
The Jiziwan region in the Yellow River basin serves as the economic center of Northwest China, a crucial national energy base, and the primary zone for desertification control. However, severe water security constraints hinder regional development. Assessing water security risks and proposing targeted strategies in the Jiziwan region is significant for supporting ecological conservation and high-quality development in the Yellow River basin. This study analyzes water security challenges facing the Jiziwan region, reviews the current status of regional water network projects and the benefits of building an integrated water network, and proposes an integrated water network framework including its overall configuration, route layout, and required water transfer scale. Key findings indicate: (1) Water security issues in the Jiziwan region are primarily manifested in three aspects: acute water supply-demand imbalance, degraded aquatic ecosystem, and insufficient flood control capabilities; (2) Despite numerous planned water diversion projects, their effectiveness and efficiency remain suboptimal due to construction methods; (3) The Tao River water diversion scheme under the Western Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project could be used to establish a gravity-flow integrated water network, resolving critical issues in existing systems, such as high water abstraction cost, operational maintenance difficulties, and weak synergistic complementarity. Based on these findings, recommendations are proposed to enhance water security in three key areas: (1) strengthening water resource management through implementing total quantity control, promoting water conservation, and optimizing water allocation; (2) improving the Jiziwan water network framework with priority given to the Western Route project; (3) advancing ecological restoration by leveraging water network infrastructure.
In recent years, the intensive utilization of water resources in the Yellow River basin has significantly improved, with the development scale of unconventional water resources continuously expanding. Nevertheless, the structural contradiction and systemic pressure between the supply and demand of water resources remain prominent, and thus the sustainable utilization of water resources in the basin faces severe challenges. This study aims to address the contradiction between water resource scarcity and the demand for high-quality development in the Yellow River basin. It reviews the current status of unconventional water resource development and utilization in the basin from the following aspects: utilization of reclaimed water, large-scale seawater desalination, rainwater harvesting, mine water utilization, and comprehensive utilization of brackish water. Key challenges are also identified from the aspects of utilization scale, top-level design, supporting infrastructure, technical standards, and critical technologies. Furthermore, this study examines the inherent principles and developmental logic governing unconventional water resource exploitation in the basin from the perspectives of differentiated, coordinated, and sustainable development. A strategy centered on "zone-specific differentiated development + diversified coordination" is proposed, encompassing strategic system construction, precise resource allocation, technological innovation breakthroughs, and robust institutional safeguards. This study can provide a fundamental reference for improving the governance of unconventional water resources and facilitating the sustainable utilization of water resources in the Yellow River basin.
The northern Jiziwan region of the Yellow River basin in China serves as a vital national base for energy and strategic resources, a major grain-producing area, and an ecological security barrier. Promoting the efficient utilization of water resources in this region is a crucial foundation for ensuring ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River basin. In light of the water resource conditions and current water usage in the northern Jiziwan region, this study analyzes the water scarcity problem and the urgency of achieving efficient water use in the region. It summarizes the achievements made in strengthening water resource management and developing water-saving agriculture in the basin in recent years, focusing on aspects including total water resource control, supply-demand balance, regional water networks, and regulatory measures. Furthermore, it proposes the following pathways for the efficient utilization of water resources in the basin from engineering and management perspectives: (1) strictly controlling the expansion of irrigated areas while improving water use efficiency; (2) improving the regional water network system to coordinate multiple water sources and users for scientific allocation; (3) enhancing the intelligent monitoring of water consumption while establishing a precise measurement system for agricultural water use and an evaluation system for water use efficiency; and (4) advancing agricultural water pricing reforms to create a new mechanism for water conservation rewards and subsidies. These measures aim to provide support for water security guarantee, ecological protection, and high-quality development in the Yellow River basin.
The Jiziwan region in the Yellow River basin serves as the strategic core of China's modern coal chemical industry; however, sustainable development of the region is severely constrained by limited water resources. This study considers multiple factors, including regional macro socioeconomic development trends, national and regional energy strategies and plans, as well as technological and market development trends in the modern coal chemical industry. We adopt a bottom-up, product-based water demand estimation method to project medium- and long-term water use trends in the region and identify key challenges to the sustainable development of the regional coal chemical industry. Our findings highlight three major constraints: an inherent shortage of water resources; bottlenecks in water-saving technologies and under-utilization of unconventional water sources; and insufficient water supply capacity to meet the demands of future industrial expansion. In response, we propose strategic pathways for water-adaptive development: expanding the diversity of water supply sources, enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of water resource management, and advancing technological innovation in the modern coal chemical sector.
Engineering sediment design is a common technical challenge faced by the water conservancy hubs in sediment-laden rivers worldwide. As a typical reservoir in the sediment-laden river, the Guxian Water Conservancy Project is a milestone project in improving the Yellow River water and sediment regulation system and implementing the national strategy of ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. Proper handling of engineering sediment issues is crucial for the project development. On the basis of in-depth analysis of the design and regulation experiences from existing water conservancy projects in sediment-laden rivers such as Sanmenxia and Xiaolangdi Reservoir, this study focuses on the characteristics and changing trend of the incoming water and sediment of the Guxian Water Conservancy. In response to the design requirements in engineering sediment design, including the coupling design of long-term water and sediment series, active control of sedimentation morphology, and dynamic resilience maintenance of effective reservoir capacities, dynamic regulation is used as the guide of engineering sediment design. And several key technologies are developed, including the design of sediment-discharge bottom holes with ultra-deep and ultra-large discharge capacities, design of dynamic sediment erosion base level and capacity, coupling design between three sediment deposition patterns and dynamic storage capacity, and operation mode of storing clean water and regulating muddy flow. A water-sediment co-treatment technology system for sediment-laden rivers that features morphology control, process regulation, and dynamic response is formed. Moreover, the adaptability of Guxian Water Conservancy is improved to the extreme incoming water and sediment combinations, which is of great significance for enhancing the water-sediment regulation and water resource storage capacities of the Yellow River, and achieving the long-term stability in the lower reach of the Yellow River. Meanwhile, it provides a new technological paradigm for the treatment of engineering sediment problems in reservoirs of sediment-laden river.
As China's urbanization accelerates, single-mode rail transit systems are no longer sufficient to satisfy increasingly diverse commuting needs. There is a growing demand for an integrated, multi-level rail transit model tailored to China's specific context—one that supports metropolitan and regional development through better network coordination. The study reviews the current state of rail transit integration in China across four aspects: (1) integration scenarios, (2) infrastructure and rolling stock, (3) transport operations and management, (4) legal and policy support. Key challenges include low ridership on certain routes, fragmented ticketing systems, high operational costs, uncoordinated planning of suburban lines, and difficulties in building a stable passenger base. These issues call for new operational models and improved technical standards. In response, the study outlines a development strategy that includes clear goals, pilot examples, and key tasks. It recommends a "cross-city + radial + multi-branch" network layout, unification of technical standards, smart service platforms, and stronger coordination mechanisms. By aligning planning, technology, operations, and policy, the goal is to achieve seamless integration of multi-modal rail systems and support more balanced regional growth.
Currently, with the in-depth promotion of new urbanization and regional coordinated development strategies, megacities (clusters) with strong driving capabilities have emerged in China, posing urgent demands for building a multi-level rail transit system to better serve the transportation needs of cities (clusters). By taking into account representative megacities (clusters) such as Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Beijing hubs, this study summarizes the current status of multi-level rail transit in China and proposes main problems it faces. Development paths for enhancing the urban service function of multi-level rail transit are proposed, including promoting multi-network shared stations, emphasizing the integration of railways into core urban areas, encouraging the efficient utilization of corridor resources to achieve complementary functions and optimal economic outcomes, adhering to public transportation-oriented operation, and increasing railway network supply to achieve the connection and integration of national railway and subway networks. Taking Beijing as an example, a planning scheme is presented to enhance the urban service function of multi-level rail transit. On this basis, it is suggested to innovate development concepts from the aspects of improving hub connectivity, optimizing the layout of production facilities, leveraging the integration effect of transportation stations, focusing on the utilization of existing corridor resources, and further promoting public transportation-oriented operations. It is also necessary to strengthen practical exploration to accumulate experiences for further improving the service and support capabilities of rail transit for urban development.
The construction of human settlement environment is closely related to rural development and is an important task in the current rural modernization practice in China. Building a diversified and scientific development system for rural human settlements in Northeast China is crucial for the health and well-being of rural residents. It can effectively support the steady revitalization of Northeast China in the new era. Starting from the perspective of basic disciplines such as architecture, geography, sociology, economics, and environmental studies, this study identifies the theoretical basis of human settlements science, proposes a theoretical framework for the development system of rural human settlements in Northeast China, and establishes the rural human settlements system. The study believes that the dominant development paths for the rural human settlements in Northeast China are: coordinating the industrial layout planning to improve the "agriculture-ecology" human settlement carrier, strengthening the functional adaptation model empowerment to build a "ladder-type" human settlement system, and promoting smart contraction spatial reallocation to construct an "intensive center-adaptive edge" human settlement pattern. To this end, it is recommended to establish a resident‒industry‒space planning system for the production environment to match the multi-order structure, a living environment planning‒construction‒guarantee system that adapts to local development conditions, an ecological environment protection‒supervision‒incentive system that is linked at multiple levels, and a governance system for cultural environment inheritance‒expansion‒consolidation that caters to the needs of multiple subjects, to improve the rural human settlements in Northeast China accurately.
It has become an international trend for lunar exploration objectives to shift toward "emphasizing both understanding and utilization." Lunar infrastructure construction (LIC) will become a critical element in humanity's development and utilization of the Moon. China is also conducting the planning and deployment of lunar base construction, necessitating a systematic review and scientific evaluation of the major task requirements and technological development directions for LIC. Relying on an interdisciplinary team of experts, this study reviews the deep space exploration plans and research literature of major spacefaring nations. Based on relevant bibliometric data, it formulates a LIC task requirement list covering core objectives and supporting capabilities, as well as a LIC key technology list. Based on the above lists, a questionnaire was designed, and domain experts were organized to complete the survey. The questionnaire data then underwent in-depth mining and comprehensive evaluation. The research proposes the LIC core task and key technology system, identifying priority construction tasks such as power generation and oxygen production infrastructure, and key technological aspects such as lunar regolith printing and in-situ drilling on the lunar surface. Additionally, it assesses the technology maturity levels, implementation pathways, and development bottlenecks. The LIC task and technology system constructed in this study not only provides data support and directional guidance for China's LIC capability layout but also offers a reference framework for the phased deployment and resource allocation of major deep space exploration missions.
With the leapfrog development of space technologies, extraterrestrial in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) is transitioning from a frontier concept to engineering practices. As a crucial pillar for building deep space exploration capabilities, the ISRU technology will reshape the future paradigm of deep space exploration and give rise to an emerging space economy centered on extraterrestrial in-situ resources. This study aims to investigate the mission requirements and key technologies for extraterrestrial ISRU. Based on literature review, expert assessment, and other methods, it constructs for the first time a resource-product mission requirement list and a key technology list for extraterrestrial ISRU, systematically evaluating the implementation pathways and technological development directions for ISRU missions. Based on the analysis results of the maturity, application timeline, development level, and constraints of key extraterrestrial ISRU technologies, the study indicates that the peak time for the realization of China's extraterrestrial ISRU technologies will be concentrated between 2031 and 2036. Technological application constraints and a lack of infrastructure are identified as major factors hindering extraterrestrial ISRU, highlighting issues such as inadequate matching of technologies with application scenarios and lagging construction of technology verification facilities during practical implementation. Looking ahead, the major tasks for extraterrestrial ISRU will focus on the development and utilization of water ice, lunar and Martian regolith, gaseous, waste, and mineral resources. Key extraterrestrial ISRU technologies encompass five areas: resource prospecting, in-situ manufacturing and construction, resource exploitation, product and consumable storage, and resource processing technologies.