The 9th International Conference “ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING”
22–23 May 2014, Vilnius, Lithuania
SELECTED PAPERS
eISSN 2029-7092 / eISBN 978-609-457-640-9
Available online at http://enviro.vgtu.lt
Section: Sustainable Urban Development
System Dynamics approach within the context of city resilience and
urban metabolism
Tatjana Kuzņecova, Francesco Romagnoli
Riga Technical university, Institute of Energy Systems and Environment, Kronvalda 1, Riga LV-1010, Latvia
Abstract
Current study represents an analysis of urban metabolism and urban dynamics theory binding it with the resilience concept. This research
aims to find links and interdependencies between these notions, identify gaps in the existing studies and formulate the problem to be
solved at the further steps of research through the implementation of System Dynamics modeling. The initial insight in causal-loop
diagram construction in order to illustrate the given dynamic problem has been made.
Keywords: resilience; urban metabolism; energy; system dynamics; sustainability.
1. Introduction
The concept of Urban Metabolism originated by Wolman [1] and being developed from that time is considered as a
fundamental principle to build sustainable cities. As highlighted by Kennedy et al. [2], the potential of using the concept of
urban metabolism in the urban design context is a relatively new development. This is also relevant to the integration of the
urban metabolism perpsective into the resilience assessment and building the resilient cities.
Production and distribution of energy is crucial for ensuring diverse processes in the city organism – industrial processes,
transportation, household functioning, healthcare etc. Changes in energetic metabolism and sub-systems that support it may
have effects at the scale which is still unknown. Such changes may be both positive and negative. Negative intervention is
the functionality of the system is represented by the interruption of energy supply due to the natural disaster. On the other
hand, such a reorganization of energy system like the implementation of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency
measures seems to appear as a positive change.
Since a city represents a complex dynamic system with a huge number of components and sophisticated feedback loops,
the resilience issue in this case cannot be properly solved by the linear models; therefore, the need for the implementation of
Systems thinking into resilience assessment has been identified.
Current study represents an analysis of urban metabolism and urban dynamics theory binding it with the resilience
concept. This research aims to find links and interdependencies between these notions and formulates the problem to be
solved at the further steps of research through the implementation of System Dynamics modeling.
2. Urban metabolism
The concept of the urban metabolism, conceived by Wolman in 1965 [1], is fundamental to developing sustainable cities
and communities. Urban metabolism may be defined as “the sum total of the technical and socio-economic processes that
occur in cities, resulting in growth, production of energy, and elimination of waste” [2].
Cities are areas of intense human activity, which face major problems, corresponding to environmental problems, and
also social and economic issues due to inappropriate or excessive use and transformation of resources. Various researchers
(Boyden et al. [3]; Girardet [4]; Wolman [1] and others) examined cities and urban processes from the perspective of natural
ecosystems; they saw the city itself as the initiator of the problems. Authors proposed to analyze the urban systems based on
ecological principles and methods. From this perspective, a city can be seen as a giant organism.
Corresponding author: Tatjana Kuzņecova. E-mail address: [email protected]
http://dx.doi.org/10.3846/enviro.2014.125
© 2014 The Authors. Published by VGTU Press. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and
source are credited.
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The understanding of urban metabolic processes has improved over the last few decades as a result of number of studies:
from the linear model (Wolman [1]), cyclical model (Girardet [4]) up to the network model (Zhang et al. [5, 6]), where the
direction of eco-flows among the components is presented not as a chain, but rather as a network.
2.1. Energy metabolism
The model proposed by Zhang et al. [7] contains links among three key trophic levels which are analogous to those of a
natural ecosystem: the energy exploitation sector functions as an energy producer; the energy transformation sector
functions as a primary consumer of this energy; and terminal consumption sectors (here, industry and households) function
as secondary consumers (see Fig. 1).
In urban energy metabolic processes, the energy produced by the energy exploitation sector is considered the primary
energy source; it consequently provides energy for both the transformation and terminal consumption sectors. The produced
outputs can be used also outside the system. The energy transformation sector includes oil refining, power generation and
cogeneration; it utilizes the primary energy produced locally or imported from the outside of the system to produce the
energy that will be used by secondary consumers. A part of this production can be exported to the outside of the system’s
boundaries. The terminal consumption sectors include both industries that utilize energy and households within the city; it
utilizes the primary and secondary energy from internal and external sources [7].
Fig. 1. The scheme of energy metabolism proposed by Zhang et al. [7]
According to Korhonen [8], energy production should be based on renewable sources: “In nature the only external source
is the (infinite) solar energy input. Consequentially, industrial systems should use energy in a food-chain-type arrangement
that relies on waste energy utilization.”
2.2. Urban system’s health
As highlighted by Kennedy et al. [2], the potential to use the concept of urban metabolism in an urban design context is a
relatively new development. For example, students in Civil Engineering at the University of Toronto study the urban
metabolism in order to design infrastructure for sustainable cities. Five criteria of urban quality – identification; diversity;
flexibility; degree of self-sufficiency; and resource efficiency, are then sought in a design approach that includes analysis of
urban metabolism.
According to Girardet [4], factors such as urban structure, form, climate, quality and age of building stock, urban
vegetation and transportation technology can influence the rate of a city’s metabolism. According to Shi and Yang [9], a
healthy urban ecosystem should be able to support urban development and have enough resilience to recover from
ecological environmental stress. Healthy material flow can support the function of the system. Therefore material flow can
be regarded as a key factor that reflects the health of an urban ecosystem.
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3. Interconnection between urban metabolism and resilience
The term resilience was first proposed in ecological research by Holling [10] to describe both the system (an ecosystem,
society or organization) that remains in a state of equilibrium under the extreme conditions, or the way how dynamic
systems behave when they are stressed and moved away from the state of equilibrium.
The idea to look for vulnerability (and consequentially, resilience) reasons in the system’s structure and behavior,
including the interconnection of vulnerability and urban metabolism, is not completely new, since urban metabolism can be
viewed as an important component of urban ecosystem’s health; it was involved in urban resilience research [11]. Healthy
ecosystem and urban environment can reduce human vulnerability to natural hazards. Fig. 2 shows that metabolic flows
represent one of the components constituting the urban resilience that was already mentioned in relation to urban system’s
health. According to Hardoy et al. [12], appropriately organized urban flows in terms of energy and material flows, and
well-constructed infrastructure to ensure these flows help cities withstand and cope with catastrophic disasters. Urban
metabolism, for instance, has been invoked in the much more rapid reconstruction of New Orleans that followed after
Hurricane Katrina. John Fernandez and students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), use material flow analysis
to help produce more ecologically sensitive designs for the city [13].
Within disaster management, the need to integrate chronic and catastrophic disaster has been recognized, for example by
the United Nations (UN) Healthy Cities Programme. However, the holistic policy approach to chronic and catastrophic
disaster has not been produced yet. The distribution of both types of risk arises from unequal power relations between
different social classes and residential districts in the city [12].
Metabolic
flows
Social
dynamics
Urban
resilience
Governance
networks
Built
environment
Fig. 2. The four themes interrelated in the Urban Resilience Research (Adapted from [11])
Differential ability to access basic resources and services from the state, civil society and private sector shape the
capacity of communities to avoid environmental risk. It was highlighted that to the hazards inherent to the site are added
those linked to a lack of investments in infrastructure and services [12]. As the International Federation of the Red Cross
and Red Crescent (IFRC/RC) claims, a city with good sewers drains and rubbish collection is also much better able to cope
with flooding (adapted from Resilience Alliance [14]).
4. Introducing Systems thinking into resilience and urban dynamics concepts
Jay W. Forrester in 1969 [15] introduced a new perspective on analyzing urban problems by linking together engineering
and the social sciences. Urban Dynamics theory views the city as a complex social and economic system formed by the
interactions of individual efforts to achieve personal goals. The urban dynamics perspective has been integrated into the
decision-making processes of urban areas by starting urban dynamics research programs by Alfeld and Graham [16].
Forrester [17] made insights to the understanding of the important urban mechanisms, which cause the Urban Dynamics.
One of such mechanisms is „Urban attractiveness”. When some area is slightly more attractive than others, the population
begins to move in the direction towards the more attractive area that creates disequilibrium. According to Alfeld [18],
another important driving force that controls urban behavior is resource constraints.
Why the implementation of systems thinking into analyzing the resilience issues is requisite? Forrester stated that the
human mind is not adapted to interpreting how social systems behave, which belong to the class of multi-loop nonlinear
feedback systems [17]. As outlined in the book “Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management” [19]:
„..ecological – and for that matter, economic, institutional, and social – systems are not static or completely determined.
Variability and change are the rule and provide the next step toward reality”. Correspondingly, Walker et al. [20]
highlighted: „Resilience thinking presents an approach to managing natural resources that embraces human and natural
systems as complex systems continually adapting through cycles of change”.
In equilibrium, construction balances demolition. As in the Schumpeter economic concept of creative destruction [21]
long term resilience requires constant transformations across different scales, components (groups), or subsystem collapses
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in order to make the entire system evolve. Small failures allow a system to release and reorganize some of its resources [18,
22]. That was highlighted by Meadows [23] in a book „Thinking in Systems”: „resilience is not the same thing as being
static or constant over time”. Since resilience may not be obvious, people often sacrifice resilience for stability of
productivity or other immediately recognizable benefits.
Like other types of systems, a social-ecological system (including cities) is made up of many components that interact
with each other at multiple levels and form a more complex unit. External processes influence slowly changing components,
which in turn influence rapidly changing components (those impact people more directly). People respond to system
changes through institutional mechanisms, creating feedback loops that affect environmental benefits and human well-being
(modified from Chapin et al. [24]). Parts of a social-ecological system respond to changes in other components, sometimes
triggering feedbacks that can amplify change in the whole system or can have a stabilizing effect. Through these
interactions, social-ecological systems can self-organize, novel configurations can emerge, and adaptation may occur. This
feature of integrated social-ecological systems can make managing them very complicated, but it also creates opportunities
for recovery following the disturbance [24, 14].
Summing it up, it can be concluded that the city is a multi-dimensional system consisting of various sub-systems, which
change over time and space. Respectively, resilience assessment method must address the features of complex systems,
since, as was already mentioned, resilience to a great extent depends on the structure of the system and behavior arising
from that structure. Through simulation analyses of urban Dynamics models, it is possible to study the effects of alternative
programs and policies on the city as a whole. The systems approach is holistic because it does not focus on a detailed
understanding of parts, but on how key components contribute to the dynamics of the whole system [14].
In the last decade, a number of studies integrating System Dynamics modeling into resilience issues have been
conducted. Bennet et al. [25] in their study A Systems Model Approach to Determining Resilience Surrogates for Case
Studies has developed a four-step process for identifying resilience surrogates through development of system models.
The study of Park et al. [26] presents a causal loop diagram to analyze the interaction between elements of the selfsufficient city development and a system dynamics model to perform quantitative analysis of urban development policies.
Wears and Perry [27] in their paper „Systems Dynamics Representation of Resilience” used systems dynamics modelling
to explore the nature of resilience, using small, highly abstract modules built for incorporation into a larger model of the
crowding problem in emergency departments.
Newell et al. [28] stressed the need for the electricity sector to prepare for the impacts of global change by encouraging
innovation and diversity, supporting modularity and redundancy, and embracing the need for a policy making approach that
takes into account the Dynamics of the wider social-ecological system. Their case study of the Australian National
Electricity Market demonstrates how System Dynamics modeling can be used to initiate the development of systemic
policies and explains how the electricity sector can protect itself against the effects of global change.
Hoffman [29] presented the system dynamics model for the reorganization of the rural energy system in Alaska by
incorporating renewable energy sources instead of traditional oil. With the goal to meet the community’s energy needs at
the minimum costs, the study does not directly focus on resilience issues.
Ramezankhani and Najafiyazdi [30] proposed a System Dynamics model on dynamical behavior of disaster management
in Iran in order to simulate the activities in the zone after the earthquake.
The most advanced research on urban resilience through the System dynamics modeling, perhaps, has been conducted by
Simonovic [31] by determination of practical links between disaster risk management, climate change adaptation and
sustainable development leading to reduction of disaster risk and re-enforcing resilience as a new development paradigm.
The modeling of coastal communities exposed to flood risk has been carried out.
Although the interest to the analysis of urban processes and urban dynamics through the implementation of System
Dynamics modeling is increasing, existing studies still lack the representation of the urban resilience concept. It can be
concluded from the literature review that researchers still do not dare to create detailed multi-dimensional models at a scale
of a big metropolis. Most of models are too general, and the scale of the system is usually limited to the size of a village or a
small town. However, the scale of metropolis represent much more diverse set of elements and interactions between them,
as well as sophisticated feedback loops and impacts between the internal components of the system and the system and its
environment, which still represents one of the major problems in a modern modeling of dynamic systems.
4.1. Designing resilient systems
Baran [32], Fiksel [33] highlighted the importance of building the distributed systems composed of independent yet
interactive elements, which may deliver required functionality with greater resilience. For example, a collection of
distributed electric generators (e.g., fuel cells) connected to a power grid may be more reliable and fault-tolerant than a
central power station; On the other hand, resilience is often enhanced by the right kind of clustering, which allows bringing
resources into close proximity to one another. The diversity is one of the key characteristics of the resilient system. For
instance, Mac Arthur [34] noted that the more pathways for energy to reach a consumer, the less severe would be the failure
of one of the pathways. One of the good ways to improve the resilience of the system is to de-intensify or decouple the
system from its underlying material requirements and to diversify the resources that can be used to accomplish a given task.
As a starting point for sustainable system design, several major system characteristics contributing to resilience were
identified. These characteristics are as follows: diversity, efficiency, adaptability, cohesion, modularity, tight feedback
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loops, simplicity, clustering – existence of unifying forces or linkages [33]. Bruneau [35, 36] has identified the following 4
main parameters of resilience (so-called 4-R of Resilience): robustness, redundancy, resourcefulness, rapidity. Mobility is an
important property that affects the system’s resilience. Mobility lets system move away from unfavorable, harmful
conditions or towards areas of greater need [37].
4.2. Problem formulation for further research
Nowadays, resilience is still usually understood as the ability of the system to cope with catastrophic events; and
particularly this aspect was outlined within the Hyogo Framework for Action – the plan that explains, describes and details
actions and measures that are required from different sectors and actors to reduce disaster losses by the year 2015 [38].
However, more effort should be made on understanding what contributes to the state of vulnerability of a particular system.
That would correspondingly contribute to understanding of those fundamental elements, which induce or strengthen
negative impacts in terms of losses of functionality of the urban systems at multi-dimensional scales. Such a structural
resilience is conditioned by the structural patterns and behavior that arises from this structure, and can correspond to the
resilience properties identified by Bruneau [35, 36]: robustness, rapidity, redundancy, resourcefulness. Respectively,
resilience enhancing measures must address rather the adaptability, transformability of the system, than recovery processes.
The resilience concepts should be broadened from the perspective of disaster risk to the representation of the overall
resilience, including the risk of self-induced hazard. Such risk occurs due to the poor system’s health, which can cause the
problems itself, without being exposed to extreme weather or natural conditions, and lead to chronic issues, which cannot be
solved by the short-term policies. On the other hand, unhealthy systems, being exposed to the natural (or also humaninduced) disasters, are also expected to experience much greater degree of losses.
An important issue related to the structural patterns of such complex systems like cities is the cascade failures of
interdependent sub-systems and links between them, which is of utmost importance. That means that in order to build up the
resilient cities and communities, it is necessary to implement fundamental (or structural changes) in existing systems and
avoid symptomatic solutions, which according to Senge [39] distract the attention from the fundamental solutions and make
the implementation of those less likely. When building new systems, it is necessary to take into account the internal
resilience principles in order to obtain a healthy structure.
Infrastructure represents one of the main vital components of urban systems, performing paramount functions – in fact,
ensuring the urban metabolism, which represents not only the processes within the system (storage, transformation), but
also exchange of the energy and mass flows with the system’s environment. Production and distribution of energy is crucial
for ensuring diverse processes in the city’s organism – industrial processes, transportation, household functioning,
healthcare etc. Thus, understanding of how resilient energy systems and energy metabolism contribute to the overall urban
resilience is a topical and significant issue.
The changes in the system may be either negative, or positive. For instance, the in-depth analysis of the effects on energy
source supply interruption is necessary in order to examine all possible adverse impacts at different scales. Implementation
of renewable energy sources into energy system seems to appear as a positive change; however the research works on the
effect on urban resilience due to the implementation of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency measures are still
insufficient and usually do not address the dynamics of the complex urban systems and feedbacks between its diverse
components. Moreover, not only the reliable supply of primary energy is essential, but also the improved transformation and
elimination of sub-products and wastes. Thus, changes in energetic metabolism and sub-systems that support it may have
effects at the scale which is hard to comprehend. All urban sub-systems interact with each other at different levels, and
failure in one component can lead to cascade failures of critical infrastructure systems and other crucial urban components,
and lead to adverse impacts on social and economic levels, and possibly on natural environment.
An important issue that still should be studied is dependence of Disaster risk management on resources availability,
especially energy supply. An analysis of such dependence should include both direct and indirect interdependencies. It is
crucial to understand, what losses can occur after the hazardous event with existing energy system; and how the improved
and reorganized energy system can contribute to the robustness of the system, appropriate response of society and
emergency services, and speed of recovery. Energy supply interruption may have huge negative effect on Disaster risk
management, since it affects functioning of electronic equipment, transportation, Information and telecommunication
systems, functioning of the healthcare facilities, as well as production and delivery of food and other goods necessary in
emergency situations.
Interesting sub-task is to study the role of communication within the disaster management and identify interdependencies
between energy supply, information dissemination and Disaster risk management. Here, communication is important on
different scales – in terms of pre-disaster warning; during the extreme event – providing the instructions to the society,
coordinate the actions of emergency services and other involved participants; during the recovery period – coordinate the
reconstruction actions. The important issue is the role of communication in the innovation diffusion in community, which is
important in order to implement structural changes and new Technologies contributing to the resilience of the urban system.
Summing up the above-mentioned aspects, it can be concluded that assessment of the risks arising from the character of
energy metabolism from the different viewpoints and design of more resilient energy metabolism is the task that is still to be
solved. Since urban metabolism and resilience issues are closely connected with environmental protection, it is necessary to
provide the holistic analysis including the assessment of environmental impacts/benefits from the implementation of a
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particular resilience-enhancing urban design or policy strategy. The crucial part is the implementation of System Dynamics
approach into resilience issues for studying complex non-linear models.
Adding it up, it can be concluded that the need for a “sustainable resilience” is a primary issue nowadays, which
comprises technological, social, economic, environmental aspects, resources availability, safety and communication issues
under the extreme conditions, effective innovation diffusion and attractiveness of the urban environment.
4.3. Introduction to the resilience dynamics
The diagram illustrated in Fig. 3 gives an example of resilience-technology dynamics within the balancing feedback loop,
which boosts the resilience through innovation and diversity of technologies employed.
Fig. 3. A balancing feedback loop for the resilience of energy system (adapted from Newell et al. [21])
According to the loop given, there is a little incentive to change the existing system, as long as energy supply remains
secure. However, if conditions change and number of failures increase, the pressure to boost innovation and diversity of
energy resources appears increasing the resilience of the system.
The causal-loop diagram in the Fig. 4 represents the systems archetype “Success to the Successful”. One of the loops
drives up the viability and political power of one of the alternatives (e.g. existing, traditional technologies), in the meantime
the viability and power of the other (e.g. renewable energy technologies) is forced down [21].
Fig. 4. The reinforcing archetypical feedback diagram for technology viability and power (adapted from Newell et al. [21])
Fig. 5 represents the influence diagram for defined urban resilience problem. That illustrates the initial hypothesis of how
main components of urban social-economic-technological environment may interact from the perspective of building up the
urban resilience.
Hereafter, the resilience-innovation-technology loop (B1) in the simplified form can be distinguished, as poor resilience
increases the need for alternative (e.g. renewable energy) technologies and drives up the innovation diffusion, which in turn
increases the level and range of technologies implemented contributing to the increase of resilience and reliability of the
system.
The increase of the system resilience supports the production and supply of energy and safeguards the population’s wellbeing, which in turn can also increase the production of energy and, thus, contribute to environmental degradation.
Environmental problems in turn decrease the safety of urban systems and contribute to the risks of natural hazards (see the
loops with dashed lines). That explains why the need of “Sustainable resilience” nowadays is of critical importance.
However, reliable energy supply also supports the disaster management and work of emergency service after the disaster
occurrence.
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Fig. 5. Causal-loop diagram for the proposed problem of urban resilience dynamics
Communication is represented as a versatile factor, which may play different roles in different situations. It may
contribute to environmental protection and innovation diffusion (and consequently implementation of alternative
technologies) by raising the awareness, which in turn affects the level of resilience. In the sensitive moment after the
disaster occurrence it appears as important clause to the emergency service functioning, as the coordination of rescue and
recovery works is essential; also information dissemination among the population is required in order to provide appropriate
instructions. Communication happens through both direct people contacts and help of media; thus, the first component is
highly dependent on population and people meeting intensity, while the latter depends on electricity supply and Information
technologies.
Increasing frequency and/or severity of failures of existing system creates the necessity for changes. At the same time,
implementation of new technologies and restructuring of the system requires additional costs, which have impacts on
economy in short-term and decreases the willingness to accept the changes (loop B2). However, increased resilience reduces
the need for restoration after the occurrence of extreme conditions and costs associated with this process.
Urban attractiveness is a characteristic which creates the willingness to live in a particular city and drives up the increase
of population. Urban attractiveness may be conditioned by economy level, safety, resources availability, environmental
quality and population itself. For example, the reinforcing loop can be distinguished here – urban attractiveness increases
the inflow of population, which in turn increases the production and use of goods and energy, driving up the economy level,
which consequently increases the attractiveness of the place. Resilience reinforces both the attractiveness of the place and
well-being and health of the people. However, the reinforcing effect is balanced by the negative feedbacks. Here, the
increase of population conditioned by urban attractiveness and resources depletion associated with that diminishes the
attractiveness of the place (loop B3); as well as environmental degradation balances the willingness to live in a particular
city.
5. Conclusions and discussion
Current review makes some initial insights into the crucial dynamic urban processes and interconnection between different
concepts, which, in the author’s opinion, should be studied together. Those concepts are urban metabolism, urban resilience
and implementation of systems thinking and system dynamics modelling for solving complex issues of multi-dimensional
changing systems. This review is focusing on energy metabolism of the cities and its role in performing vital functions
taking into account interdependencies of the main urban components and links between them, which can lead to the cascade
failures of different sub-systems at different levels, when being exposed to a hazard. This study aims to find links between
urban metabolic flows and city’s ability to withstand extreme conditions and recover after them depending on the character
of energy metabolism and infrastructure ensuring that. Current study proposes to look at the state of vulnerability of the
system as a level of “system’s health” conditioned by the structural patterns and behavior arising from that, which,
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therefore, cannot be significantly improved by the short-term policies. Therefore, the effect on system’s resilience due to
such reorganization of energy systems like implementation of renewable energy sources should be determined.
It was highlighted that in resilience assessment it is also necessary to study the dynamic interdependencies between
metabolic flows (in particular, energy supply) and Disaster risk management. An interesting point is to understand the role
of communication in effective Disaster risk management and its dependency on energy supply.
The overview of the history of urban dynamics and application of system dynamics modelling for studying the urban
processes lets conclude that despite increasing topicality and need for such approach, studies considering dynamic
properties of urban systems and feedback loops between diverse components are insufficient due to the complexity of such
research.
The problem to be solved in a further research has been formulated:
1. Create a system dynamics model of the urban system from the resilience perspective;
2. Study the effects of energy supply interruption on the urban system at different scales and dimensions;
3. Understand the dependency of Disaster risk management on energy supply at different stages of Disaster risk
management;
4. Study the role of communication in Disaster risk management and its dependency on energy supply;
5. Make more resilient urban design. Identify benefits/losses to the state of urban resilience due to the reorganization of the
system (for example, implementation of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency measures).
6. Assess environmental impacts/benefits after such reorganization.
It is worth mentioning that current paper aims to give the initial understanding of the resilience problem to be studied
through the implementation of System Dynamics modeling. The identification of the real variables, which are possible to
determine, as well as dynamic patterns, is the ongoing task of the study.
Acknowledgment
This work has been supported by the financial assistance of the European Union from the Lifelong Learning programme
Framework in reference to the project “ANDROID”.
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