Mitigating Risks of Event Avalanches Caused by Climate Change

Abstract

Development of the human society and its technological, economic and financial systems, coupled with the population growth, has resulted in high interconnectivity between individual and corporate entities. These entities form networks of co-dependent agents which operate under critical connectivity. Climate change has brought about an increased frequency of extreme events, such as heat waves, droughts, floods and hurricanes, which can easily set off event avalanches that propagate throughout these networks. This paper looks into event propagation characteristics of production and consumption networks and into how these characteristics can be designed and managed so as to prevent such extreme events from becoming event avalanches that sweep through the network and result in considerable human and material costs. It draws conclusions on how sustainability of an urban environment can be maintained at the time of occurrence of extreme events.