Buildings 13 01143

buildings
Review
A Review of Digital Twin Applications in Civil and
Infrastructure Emergency Management
Ruijie Cheng 1 , Lei Hou 2, * and Sheng Xu 1,3,4, *
1 School of Economics and Management, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710064, China

2 School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia
3 Xi’an Key Laboratory of Green Infrastructure Construction and Management, Chang’an University,
Xi’an 710064, China
4 Shaanxi Provincial Center of International Research on Digital Construction and Management for Transport
Infrastructure along the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi’an 710064, China
* Correspondence: lei.hou@rmit.edu.au (L.H.); sheng.xu@chd.edu.cn (S.X.)
Abstract: Natural disasters can cause severe damages to civil infrastructure and lead to extensive
economic losses and casualties. To improve the emergency response capability of civil infrastruc-
ture under extreme circumstances such as natural disasters and human-caused hazards, intelligent
technology for infrastructure emergency management has been extensively studied. As an emerging
paradigm of interdisciplinary convergence, digital twins (DTs) can integrate intelligent technology
into different stages of emergency management and provide a new solution for the emergency
management of civil infrastructure (EMCI). However, applications of DT in EMCI have several
limitations and are mostly case by case. However, the sector needs more generalisable lessons to
address the greater value of DT in the context of EMCI. To address this gap, we first carry out a
systematic literature review and analyse the latest progress and previous research deficiencies of DT
by taking the scientometrical approach. Next, a framework is proposed to explain how DT can be
applied to the mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery stages of EMCI. Lastly, the trends and
prospects of DT applications in EMCI are discussed. Overall, the knowledge gained from this study
will promote the research and development of more-viable DTs to address the sector’s demand for
emergency management.
Citation: Cheng, R.; Hou, L.; Xu, S. A

Keywords: civil and infrastructure; DT; emergency response; intelligent technology; EMCI; scientometrical
Review of Digital Twin Applications approach
in Civil and Infrastructure
Emergency Management. Buildings
2023, 13, 1143. https://doi.org/
10.3390/buildings13051143 1. Introduction
Academic Editor: Minkoo Kim Buildings, bridges, subways, roads, pipeline networks, and similar kinds of civil infras-
tructures are essential for and closely related to economic and social activities [1]. However,
Received: 20 March 2023 they are vulnerable to natural disasters and human-caused hazards, which can cause huge
Revised: 15 April 2023
threats to human, economic, and social security [2]. Unlike residential building projects,
Accepted: 21 April 2023
infrastructures such as roads, railways, airports, and large-scale exhibitions are high in
Published: 25 April 2023
cost and long in schedule, and they might jeopardise national security and public interests
during system failure or loss of function, leading to severe negative consequences [3].
Therefore, supporting an efficient, sustainable, competitive, accessible, safe, and secure
Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.
infrastructure system through the assurance of reliable and efficient disaster prevention and
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. mitigation capacity has always been a focal point to society [4]. An important measure to
This article is an open access article improve infrastructure resilience for disasters and hazards could be the use of information
distributed under the terms and and communication technologies (ICTs).
conditions of the Creative Commons Many countries have set up emergency management institutions to deal with the
Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// impact of disasters on infrastructure and put forward new requirements for promoting
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ intelligent emergency management [5]. For example, Norway’s Integrated Emergency
4.0/). Management Centre (CIEM) has developed a broad spectrum of ICTs, such as information
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13051143 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/buildings

Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 2 of 29
sharing and crowdsourcing toolkits, to support the nation’s infrastructure emergency man-
agement [6]. Hamadache et al. [7] studied disaster coordination networks to improve the
efficiency of information dissemination and communication. Pohl et al. [8] improved the ac-
curacy and ability of artificial intelligence (AI) technology to capture the dynamic situation
in disasters. Georgios et al. developed a novel evacuation-planning mechanism that was
based on reinforcement learning and game theory to support evacuees in sensing changes
in the disaster area with limited information to optimise their evacuation decisions [9].
Therefore, the emergency management of civil infrastructure (EMCI) could be used to
describe the process of mitigating the occurrences of natural and human-caused disasters,
preparing managing agents for emergencies, responding effectively and efficiently to disas-
ters, and rapidly recovering from failures and malfunctions for civil infrastructure during
emergency circumstances. Unfortunately, technical and political obstacles to EMCI have
yet to be overcome, including multidisciplinary technical advancement, data integration,
information sharing, and interorganisational collaboration [10–12]. Digital twin (DT) com-
prehensively applies various sensing, computing, and modelling methods, and it has great
potential to solve the above problems.
DT was initially applied to military, aerospace, and manufacturing as digital artefacts
of physical entities. With the rapid development of ICTs, such as the Internet of Things
(IoT), AI, big data, smart computing, and virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), DTs
are being gradually used in smart cities, big data healthcare, and many other industries [13].
The emergency management of civil infrastructure can benefit from more transparent and
real-time information delivery, underpinned by DT methodologies. These methodologies
can acquire relevant data generated in the entire life cycle of infrastructure and use it to
provide disaster warning, emergency relief, and postdisaster recovery [14].
Yu and He [15] applied DT to the intelligent disaster prevention and mitigation stage of
infrastructure and put forward a future-proofing development framework. Doğan et al. [16]
proposed an intelligent disaster management system that was based on machine learning
(ML) to simulate postdisaster rescue operations in DT. However, most of the existing studies
have not been able to fully implement DT across different stages of infrastructure projects,
which limits DT’s merits in terms of information acquisition, management, and utilisation
for EMCI purposes.
In order to close this knowledge gap, this paper uses the scientometrical approach to
identify DT benefits to EMCI as well as potential barriers that may stimulate their boarder
uptake. Over time, many structures may degrade for a number of reasons, from poor
design consideration to material rot or degradation. Civil engineers need to conduct a large
number of inspections and designs for structures that are on the brink of collapse, requiring
immediate safety measures to protect the public and occupants until remedial works take
place. EMCI can help achieve the vision of safer and more-resilient communities; build
and strengthen community resilience characteristics; empower staff, volunteers, and key
partners to better understand shocks and stresses; and take action before, during, and
after emergencies. Technological developments innovations are vital for effective disaster
management. Researchers have been taking several measures to upgrade technological
inputs. Disaster resource centralisation underpinned by big data at national and district
levels ensures quick access to resources to minimise response time during emergencies.
The network and mobile-satellite-based units can be used for immediate communication.
Together with geographic information systems (GISs), the devices become effective tools
for emergency responders to access information on crucial parameters for disaster-affected
areas. They could also be used for detecting, tackling, and forecasting disasters such as
floods, tsunamis, and cyclones. Future civil engineering students also need to give due
importance and pay due attention to each subject that forms a part of their studies, which
ought to be designed to impart necessary technology advancements and civil engineering
knowledge. Personnel reskilling and upskilling are crucial aspects, and EMCI stakeholders
should take them seriously as well as advanced technologies involving interdisciplinary
background expertise require personnel to learn, practise, and apply their knowledge. Prac-
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 3 of 29
tical exposure to technologies will help young engineers to prevent and control the adverse
effects of unforeseen disasters before they occur and to mitigate their effects afterwards.
To date, various streams of research across different disciplines, such as information
science, computer science, and engineering, have focused on the impact of disasters and
emergency responses. However, to the authors’ knowledge, limited attention has been
devoted to understanding how novel technologies and corresponding new measures could
support EMCI in the context of preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. The paper
is structured as follows: Section 2 retrieves the data set and makes a statistical analysis of
the publications. Section 3 classifies the research topics in the field and analyses the topic
members. Section 4 puts forward a framework for applying DT to the four stages of EMCI.
Section 5 discusses future research trends and directions. Section 6 provides the conclusion
of this work.
2. Publication Analysis
The literature review is carried out through the steps of research database and keyword
identification, literature search, paper filtering (based upon the exclusion criteria), critical
and analytical synthesis, and knowledge extraction.
2.1. Data Collection

The data were extracted from Web of Science (WOS), a multidisciplinary academic
database. The WOS core collection database advanced retrieval search strings were set
as (“digital twin” OR “intelligent”) AND (“infrastructure”) AND (“emergency” OR “dis-
aster”), and the retrieval year range of literature in this study was set to 2013–2023. The
keyword “intelligent” is used to expand the retrieval scope and avoid omitting articles
related to the research topic of this paper, and further manual screening was conducted.
Through the initial screening, 611 papers were retrieved as of 1 February 2023. After read-
ing the titles, keywords, and abstracts, the kinds of literature inconsistent with the research
topic were excluded. For example, ref. [17] was rejected because it had nothing to do
with DT, although it applied intelligent algorithms to the field of infrastructure emergency
management. The total number of available papers was 95. In addition, the snowballing
method was used to supplement other publications related to the research topic.
Buildings 2023, 13, x FOR PEER REVIEW 4 of As
30 shown
in Figure 1, the total number of documents used for the systematic review was 174.
identification
Records identified by databases

(n=611)
Records screened after removing

Records excluded
duplicates, reading titles, keywords, and
(n=105)
abstracts (n=253)
Screening
Records selected by specific criteria

Records excluded
(the application of DT in civil infrastructure
(n=53)
emergency management) (n=148)
Articles from
Articles to synthesized and analyzed
snowballing
(n=95)
(n=79)
Included
Final articles used for systematic review

(n=174)
Figure 1.
Figure 1. Paper
Paper selection
selectionprocess.
process.
2.2. Statistical Analysis of Data

The scientometric analysis is conducted by CiteSpace, which is information visuali-
sation software that measures and analyses research data and then generates various bib-
liometric networks. In this study, we developed a keyword co-occurrence network
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 4 of 29
2.2. Statistical Analysis of Data

The scientometric analysis is conducted by CiteSpace, which is information visual-
isation software that measures and analyses research data and then generates various
bibliometric networks. In this study, we developed a keyword co-occurrence network
through CiteSpace and visualised the key journals, countries, and time distribution zone,
thereby revealing the evolution, the frontier, and the development trends of the research
field, which is helpful for further content analysis and qualitative discussions with the
mapping results.
2.2.1. Time Distribution Feature Analysis

The number of articles published over time reveals the development trends in a field.
Therefore, the number of annually published articles on DT in infrastructure emergency
management in the WOS core collection databases was counted. A distribution map was
developed to analyse the research trends in this field, as shown in Figure 2. In general, the
research on the application of DT in civil infrastructure emergency management shows a
positive development trend. From 2013 to 2018, the number of articles in the database was
Buildings 2023, 13, x FOR PEER REVIEW 5 of 30
small, indicating that this field was only at its frontier development stage. In recent years,
the number of published papers in this field has increased, from 8 in 2013 to 27 in 2022.
Numberof
Figure2.2.Number
Figure ofarticles
articlesbetween
between2013
2013and
and2023.
2023.
2.2.2. Productive Countries Analysis

2.2.2. Productive Countries Analysis
The node type was set to country, and the threshold of items extracted from each
time slice was set to the top 50, after which CiteSpace measured the scientific collaboration
time slice countries
between was set toby
thethe
topnumber
50, afterofwhich CiteSpace
copublished measured
papers. the scientific
The country collaboration
of every author was
between
counted, and the co-occurrence network of significant research countries wasauthor
countries by the number of copublished papers. The country of every was
developed,
counted, and the co-occurrence network of significant research countries was
as shown in Figure 3. In Figure 3, the size of nodes stands for the total number of authors developed,
as shown
from in Figure papers,
collaborative 3. In Figure
and 3,thethe size stand
edges of nodes
for stands for the papers.
collaborative total number of authors
from The
collaborative papers, and the edges stand for collaborative papers.
quantitative analysis revealed that 94 countries had participated in the research
on applying DT in EMCI. In Figure 3, each circle is a node, its size indicates the number
of published articles, and the connection between two nodes reflects the collaboration
relationship between countries. If the nodes in the network have outer circles, these nodes
have high centrality. As shown in Figure 3, China has the largest node size, indicating that
China is the most active country in this field. From 2013 to 2023, China published 53 articles,
or 29.4% of all the articles. At the same time, China has the highest centrality, of 0.39, which
means China has a significant cooperative relationship with other countries. The numbers
of articles published in the United States and in Britain are 36 and 20, respectively, second
only to China. Other countries, such as Australia, Canada, and Japan, have also been
prominent in this research field.
time slice was set to the top 50, after which CiteSpace measured the scientific collaboration
between countries by the number of copublished papers. The country of every author was
counted, and the co-occurrence network of significant research countries was developed,
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 as shown in Figure 3. In Figure 3, the size of nodes stands for the total number of authors
5 of 29
from collaborative papers, and the edges stand for collaborative papers.
Buildings 2023, 13, x FOR PEER REVIEW 6 of 30
respectively, second only to China. Other countries, such as Australia, Canada, and Japan,
have also been prominent in this research field.
Figure 3. Co-occurrence map of main research countries.
2.2.3. 3.
Figure Article Sources map
Co-occurrence Analysis
of main research countries.
2.2.3. Article Sources
Academic journalsAnalysis
are important information media for communicating, disseminat-
The
ing, and quantitative
Academic
inheriting analysis
journals are revealed
scientific important
achievements. that 94Identifying
countries
information had
media participated
for journals
critical in the
communicating,
in the research
dissemi-
target re-
on applying
nating, and DT in EMCI.
inheriting In Figure
scientific 3, each
achievements.circle is a node,
Identifying its size indicates
critical
search field can provide an approach for systematically analysing the research status quo. journals the
in number
the target
ofAccording
published
research toarticles,
field can
the and the
provide
retrieval connection
an
results,approach between
180 articles two nodes reflects
for systematically
were published by 115the
analysing collaboration
the research
journals. In Figure re-4,
status
lationship between countries. If the nodes in the network have outer
the top 25 highly cited journals were mapped out in a journal cocitation network. In thisIn
quo. According to the retrieval results, 180 articles were published circles,
by these
115 nodes
journals.
have high4,centrality.
Figure
network, the top
each node 25As shown
highly
represents inaFigure
cited journals
journal, 3, the
China
were hassize
mapped
node theislargest
out in anode
determined size,
journal indicating
bycocitation
the that
network.
total number
China is
ofIntimes the most
this network,
that it was active
each country
node
cited, in
andrepresents this field.
the link between From
a journal, 2013
twothe to 2023,
nodeindicates
nodes China published
size is determined
that there isby 53 arti-
the total
a citation
cles, or
number 29.4%of of all
times the
that articles.
it was At the
cited, same
and the time,
link China
between has the
two
relationship between the two journals. Table 1 shows the top 25 high-impact journals highest
nodes centrality,
indicates thatof 0.39,
there
be-is
which
a means
citation China
relationship
tween 2013 and 2023. has a significant
between the cooperative
two journals. relationship
Table 1 with
shows other
the top countries.
25 The
high-impact
numbers
journalsof articles2013
between published
and 2023.in the United States and in Britain are 36 and 20,
Figure 4. Top-25 journal cocitation network.

Figure 4. Top-25 journal cocitation network.
Regarding the number of citations in a journal, Automation in Construction has been
Table 1. Top-25 high-impact journals, 2013–2023.
most cited (48 times), indicating its higher contribution to this knowledge scope. The
second-most-cited journal
Rank Journal Computer-Aided Civil and
is Title Infrastructure
Cocitation Engineering,
Frequency which
Centrality
publishes papers related to ICTs and civil and infrastructure engineering. The Journal
1 Automation in Construction 48 0.21
of2 Computing
Computer-Aided
in CivilCivil and Infrastructure
Engineering Engineering
is ranked third according to 32the number of 0.08
citations.
3
Overall, theJournal of Computing
DT EMCI researchindemonstrates
Civil Engineering 30feature and ranges
the multidisciplinary 0.11across
4
construction Sensors ICT, sociology, management science,
building technology, 28 0.06
and engineering, to
5
name a few. IEEE Access 26 0.06
6 Natural Hazards 26 0.07
7 Advanced Engineering Informatics 22 0.08
8 International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 21 0.03
9 Procedia Engineering 21 0.04
10 Sustainability 21 0.01
11 Communications of the ACM 17 0.16
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 6 of 29
Table 1. Top-25 high-impact journals, 2013–2023.
Rank Journal Title Cocitation Frequency Centrality

1 Automation in Construction 48 0.21
2 Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering 32 0.08
3 Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering 30 0.11
4 Sensors 28 0.06
5 IEEE Access 26 0.06
6 Natural Hazards 26 0.07
7 Advanced Engineering Informatics 22 0.08
8 International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 21 0.03
9 Procedia Engineering 21 0.04
10 Sustainability 21 0.01
11 Communications of the ACM 17 0.16
12 IEEE Communications Magazine 17 0.1
13 Journal of Construction Engineering and Management 17 0.05
14 Safety Science 17 0.02
15 Earthquake Spectra 16 0.03
16 IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 15 0.05
17 Nature 14 0.02
18 Reliability Engineering and System Safety 14 0.01
19 Structure and Infrastructure Engineering 14 0.03
20 Computer Networks 13 0.02
21 Journal of Management in Engineering 13 0.02
22 Remote Sensing 13 0.01
23 Applied Sciences 12 0.07
24 Expert Systems with Applications 12 0.03
25 Journal of Information Technology in Construction 12 0.01
2.2.4. Document Citation Analysis

The research topic of DT in emergency response is relatively mature. Table 2 shows
the highly cited articles contributed by researchers around the world. The most cited paper
is reference [18] (149 times). It proposes a big-data-driven approach for disaster response
through sentiment analysis. The practical implication is the real-time categorisation and
classification of social media big data for disaster response and recovery. Reference [19]
has been cited 103 times, which proposed a disaster-damage-detection method combining
machine learning with remote-sensing data, which improved the timeliness and accuracy
of emergency responses.
Table 2. Top-10 highly cited papers.
No. Document Name Authors Source Year Citations

Big data analytics for disaster response and International Journal of
1 Ragini et al. [18] 2018 149
recovery through sentiment analysis Information Management
Detection of Urban Damage Using Remote
2 Sensing and Machine Learning Algorithms: Cooner et al. [19] Remote Sensing 2016 103
Revisiting the 2010 Haiti Earthquake
Integration of BIM and GIS: IFC geometry
3 transformation to shapefile using enhanced Zhu et al. [20] Automation in Construction 2019 96
open-source approach
Developing a Digital Twin at Building and
Journal of Management in
4 City Levels: Case Study of West Lu et al. [21] 2020 91
Engineering
Cambridge Campus
Social media for intelligent public
International Journal of
5 information and warning in disasters: An Zhang et al. [22] 2019 88
Information Management
interdisciplinary review
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 7 of 29
Table 2. Cont.
No. Document Name Authors Source Year Citations

Disaster City Digital Twin: A vision for
International Journal of
6 integrating artificial and human intelligence Fan et al. [11] 2021 88
Information Management
for disaster management
A Review of Volunteered Geographic Haworth and
7 Geography Compass 2015 83
Information for Disaster Management Bruce [23]
BIM integrated smart monitoring technique
8 for building fire prevention and Cheng et al. [24] Automation in Construction 2017 81
disaster relief
Cyber security in smart cities: A review of
9 deep learning-based applications and Chen et al. [25] Sustainable Cities and Society 2021 80
case studies
Urban Digital Twins for Smart Cities and
10 Citizens: The Case Study of Dembski et al. [26] Sustainability 2020 78
Herrenberg, Germany
2.2.5. Keyword Co-Occurrence Analysis

The keywords condense authors’ academic viewpoints, and network analysis and
cluster analysis for these words can reveal the research foci across time. The node type
Buildings 2023, 13, x FOR PEER REVIEWwas set to keyword, the time slice threshold was set to top 50, and CiteSpace was8rerun of 30
to analyse the keywords and generate the keyword visualisation maps. In Figure 5, the
node size represents the keyword occurrence frequencies, and the link between two nodes
represents
links, their
the total co-occurrence
network in at least
density being one
0.0259. article.
The There
analysis were 252
revealed thatnetwork nodes
the articles and
in this
field were most related to systems, disaster management, models, networks, digital twins,in
820 links, the total network density being 0.0259. The analysis revealed that the articles
this field were
management, andmost related
smart cities.to systems, disaster management, models, networks, digital
twins, management, and smart cities.
Keywordco-occurrence
Figure5.5.Keyword
Figure co-occurrencenetwork.
network.
CiteSpace also provides citation burst detection to identify which keyword was in-
creasingly cited in a short period. Through this method, several potential trendy research
topics can be identified in different periods. Figure 6 demonstrates the keywords with the
topics can be identified in different periods. Figure 6 demonstrates the keywords with the
most robust citation bursts between 2013 and 2023. The top 3 keywords are digital twin
most robust citation bursts between 2013 and 2023. The top 3 keywords are digital twin
(strength = 2.81, 2021–2023), framework (strength = 2.48, 2018–2019), and cloud computing
(strength = 2.47, 2013–2015). DT, building information modelling (BIM), and machine
learning were the burst keywords in recent years, implying that research interest in these
topics has rapidly risen recently.
topics can be identified in different periods. Figure 6 demonstrates the keywords with the
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 most robust citation bursts between 2013 and 2023. The top 3 keywords are digital twin 8 of 29
learning
learningwere
werethe
theburst
burstkeywords
keywordsininrecent
recentyears,
years,implying
implyingthat
thatresearch
researchinterest
interestin
inthese
these
Top-8keywords
Figure6.6.Top-8
Figure keywordswith
withthe
thestrongest
strongestcitation
citationbursts
burstsbetween
between2013
2013and
and2023.
2023.
3. Thematic Identification of DT in EMCI

3. Thematic Identification of DT in EMCI
With the development of DT, numerous articles have emerged on the research of DT
With the development
in infrastructure
Buildings 2023, 13, x FOR PEER REVIEW emergency ofresponse,
DT, numerous articles
and in many have
ways,emerged on the
the research hasresearch
matured of9 of
DT
and30
informed
infrastructure emergency response, and in many ways, the research has matured
a system. Thanks to the above keyword co-occurrence analysis, the cluster analysis and
formed
functiona system. Thanks
of CiteSpace to the above
is indicated andkeyword
thus used,co-occurrence analysis, the
and the log likelihood cluster
ratio analy-is
algorithm
sis function of CiteSpace is
adopted to cluster the keywords.indicated and thus used, and the log likelihood ratio algorithm
As shown
is adopted in Figure
to cluster 7, nine main clusters were generated, with a cluster module value
the keywords.
As shown in Figure 7, nine main clusters were generated, with a cluster module
of 0.5027 and an average contour value of 0.7819, indicating that there is a high homoge-
value of 0.5027 and an average contour value of 0.7819, indicating that there is a high
neity among the keywords contained in each cluster module and that there is an inevitable
homogeneity among the keywords contained in each cluster module and that there is an
overlap among the cluster modules. On the basis of the connection degree of each cluster
inevitable overlap among the cluster modules. On the basis of the connection degree of
member, themember,
each cluster knowledge structure ofstructure
the knowledge DT in infrastructure emergency
of DT in infrastructure responses
emergency can be
responses
divided into three main topics: (1) the development of DT; (2) critical technologies
can be divided into three main topics: (1) the development of DT; (2) critical technologies applied
in DT; and
applied (3) the
in DT; andresilience and emergency
(3) the resilience management
and emergency of civil infrastructure.
management of civil infrastructure.
Figure
Figure7.
7.Keywords
Keywordsclustering
clusteringnetwork.
network.
3.1. Development
3.1. DevelopmentofofDTDT
In Clusters
In Clusters 22 and
and8,8,the
thedefinition
definitionand thethe
and application of DT
application in civil
of DT infrastructure
in civil were
infrastructure
discussed, and the most widely used DT modelling method, BIM, was also
were discussed, and the most widely used DT modelling method, BIM, was also intro- introduced.
duced.
3.1.1. Definition and Application of DT in Civil Infrastructure

The concept of DT can be traced back to NASA’s Apollo programme, in which NASA
built two identical spacecraft, the one left on Earth simulating the spacecraft in space to
monitor and predict the status of the spacecraft for decision-making [27]. In order to re-
duce the time and cost of constructing physical twins, the concept of physical twin is fur-
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 9 of 29
3.1.1. Definition and Application of DT in Civil Infrastructure

The concept of DT can be traced back to NASA’s Apollo programme, in which NASA
built two identical spacecraft, the one left on Earth simulating the spacecraft in space
to monitor and predict the status of the spacecraft for decision-making [27]. In order to
reduce the time and cost of constructing physical twins, the concept of physical twin is
further extended to DT. Grieves [28] proposed the concept of DT in 2011 as a virtual digital
representation of a physical product.
DTs contain all the information needed to build the physical entity, digitally repre-
senting the physical product. They are also linked to the physical entity through a data
thread to test the physical product under simulated conditions. Although the concept
originated in the aerospace sector, DTs are being used in several fields, such as industrial
manufacturing, big data healthcare, intelligent construction, and smart cities. Table 3 lists
the typical definitions of DT across four research fields.
Table 3. Definitions of DT in different industries.
References Research Field Typical Definitions of DT

A set of virtual information constructs describes a potential or actual physical
Grieves and
Complex Systems product from the microatomic level to the macrogeometric level. All relevant
Vickers [29]
information about this physical product is available from the digital twin.
Using physical models, sensors, and other data, a multidisciplinary and multiscale
Glaessgen and
Aerospace simulation process is integrated as a mirror of the physical product in virtual space,
Stargel [30]
reflecting the whole life-cycle process of the corresponding physical entity.
A model that connects digital information and a physical asset or physical system
Catapult [31] Manufacturing monitors the physical system by transmitting data in real time and supports
functions such as analysis, control, simulation, and others.
A realistic digital representation of an asset, process, or system in a built or
Bolton et al. [32] Infrastructure
natural environment.
Therefore, the DTs for civil infrastructure can be defined as dynamic digital replicas of
the infrastructure through data from various sources. The DTs of infrastructure can facilitate
visual monitoring, dynamic management, and intelligent decision support of emergencies
with the help of traffic simulation, data analysis, and other technical means [33].
DTs connect humans and cities in more intelligent, visual, and sustainable ways,
and interaction channels with human users are added to bridge the gap between human
relationships with cities [34]. With the rapid development of technologies such as the
IoT, city information modelling (CIM), and geographic information systems (GISs), the
DTs covering large-scale regional information are built, such as the smart city digital twin
(SCDT) [35]. The SCDT combines simulation and sensing data to provide intelligent services
for urban planning, environmental protection, and traffic control. Similarly, Fan et al. [11]
proposed a DT paradigm for disaster management in cities, establishing the role of DT
in disaster response and emergency management, including assessment enhancement,
decision-making support, and resource allocation. In 2018, the Ali Cloud Research Centre
proposed the concept of the urban brain. Using online and intelligent massive multisource
data, the urban brain can make large-scale simulations, deductions, and predictions of
possible emergencies, thus supporting intelligent decision-making in emergency responses
and public services [36].
3.1.2. BIM
DTs have great potential in infrastructure life-cycle management and the integration
of various technologies. However, to realise these functions, DTs need to create high-
fidelity virtual models to realistically reproduce physical entities’ geometries, attributes,
and rules [37]. These models not only are geometrically consistent but can also simulate
the spatial-temporal state, behaviours, and functions of the physical entities [38]. The
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 10 of 29
typical virtual modelling methods in DT practice include mainly modelling with three-
dimensional (3D) modelling software [39], modelling with measuring instruments and
equipment [40], and modelling through multidepth image fusion [41]. As the most widely
used DT modelling method, BIM has been thoroughly discussed in Cluster 8.
BIM is a 3D building model based on the relevant information data of construction
projects, which simulates the accurate information of buildings through digital informa-
tion [42]. As a digital representation of civil infrastructure assets, BIM can be used as both
an information source and a repository to support various activities in existing infrastruc-
ture [34]. In order to meet the industry demand for model interoperability among project
participants, BIM has in recent years gradually developed towards semantics. Semantic
modelling refers to the automatic identification, classification, and labelling of model ele-
ments by a computer programming language and the automatic or semiautomatic design
of parameter models by semantic rules [43]. As a modelling language for solving industrial
interoperability, industrial foundation classification (IFC) has been used to develop BIM
semantic models. It has made remarkable progress in building BIM models through 3D
point clouds [44]. However, IFC cannot be modified or used dynamically, so it only partially
solves the interoperability problem between all industries [45]. Recently, the web ontology
language (OWL) has gradually entered people’s field of vision. It is a new method to ensure
the correct alignment between multiple fields and provides better interoperability and
reasoning ability [46]. Compared with the old standard file formats, OWL is considered to
be more suitable for BIM [47].
BIM is usually constructed by using dense 3D point measurements obtained from laser
scanners. In the past, the conversion from laser scanning data to BIM was mainly a manual
operation, which required a large number of skilled modellers to work for a long time
and was prone to errors [48]. The process of scan-to-BIM makes it possible to generate de-
tailed and accurate models, which promotes the development of BIM automatic modelling.
Tang et al. [44] divided the process of scan-to-BIM into three core operations: geometric
modelling, object recognition, and relational modelling [49]. Geometric modelling aims to
fit geometric primitives to point cloud data to create simplified representations of the 3D
shape of building components [38]. Object recognition labels geometric primitives extracted
from point cloud data as named objects. Kernel point convolution neural network (KP-
Conv) [50] and dynamic graph convolutional neural networks (DGCNNs) [51] show great
potential in extracting geometric information descriptors. Relationship modelling identifies
the spatial relationship between building components, including aggregation, topological,
and directional relationships. Xiong et al. [52] proposed a method to automatically identify
the main indoor building components and modelled the positional relationship between
components through visibility reasoning.
3.1.3. DT System Architecture for EMCI

The existing research shows that the new generation of intelligent technology has been
applied to solve the EMCI problem [53]. A DT platform connects ubiquitous intelligent
terminals, integrates ICTs such as big data and IoT, and fully uses disaster data, which pro-
vides a feasible way to effect EMCI [54]. The construction of DT in EMCI generally consists
of five layers: a physical layer, data layer, service layer, DT layer, and user-interaction layer,
as shown in Figure 8.
The physical layer supports the entire DT system and is responsible for efficiently
collecting and safely transmitting information. The information on DT in civil infrastructure
comes mainly from remote sensing, social perceptions, and the crowdsourcing of data
collection. Remote sensing includes images from satellites and tilt photography taken by
uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) [55]. Social sensing is a new method based on data mining
and natural language processing (NLP) to obtain disaster information by extracting and
analysing social media data [22]. The crowdsourcing of data collection enables people to
actively report first-hand real-time information about disasters to online platforms [56].
manipulate, store, analyse, integrate, and visualise data and models by using intelligent
technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and simulation [62]. With all
available data and model resources, it can realise different functions and support ad-
vanced decision-making, such as hazard identification and disaster warnings [63].
The user-interaction layer is the top and realisation layer of the DT platform, which
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 realises the interaction between people, society, and digital spaces. Multiterminal11forms
of 29
such as web portal terminals, mobile terminals, and VR/AR terminals are the primary in-
terfaces to realise business management and interactions [64]. This layer mainly provides
various
The services
physical layerincollects
the disaster management
data from buildings,stage, including
materials, casualty
machines, location
and and pre-
other physical
diction, loss assessment, and disaster relief policy.
objects involved in the emergency management system.
Figure8.8.DT
Figure DTplatform
platformframework
frameworkofofEMCI.
EMCI.
The data layer integrates technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and vir-
tualisation to provide essential data support for the platform [57]. The disaster data of
infrastructure includes model data from GIS, BIM, and IoT; real-time sensing data; and
historical disaster data [58]. These kinds of data have comprehensive characteristics and
real-time solid performance and are indispensable information sources for evaluating
disaster-reduction capacity and formulating disaster strategies.
The digital modelling layer contains a set of digital models of physical assets, sup-
plemented by information supporting the upper layer. Different models in the modelling
layer are used for different purposes, such as real-time state control, modelling scenarios,
and decision support [59]. BIM describes the city-level information model. As a decision
support tool, CIM extends the application of information and intelligent technology at the
city level [60]. The asset information model manages equipment, personnel, and production
processes with physical entities [61]. When a DT at building and city levels is designed, it
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 12 of 29
is necessary to predefine the standardised modelling process to extend the model from a
single infrastructure to the whole city.
The data/model integration layer is the core of DT architecture. This layer aims to
manipulate, store, analyse, integrate, and visualise data and models by using intelligent
technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and simulation [62]. With all
available data and model resources, it can realise different functions and support advanced
decision-making, such as hazard identification and disaster warnings [63].
The user-interaction layer is the top and realisation layer of the DT platform, which re-
alises the interaction between people, society, and digital spaces. Multiterminal forms such
as web portal terminals, mobile terminals, and VR/AR terminals are the primary interfaces
to realise business management and interactions [64]. This layer mainly provides various
services in the disaster management stage, including casualty location and prediction, loss
assessment, and disaster relief policy.
3.2. Critical Technologies Applied in DT

The comprehensive application of new technologies has brought profound develop-
ment to DT. Clusters 3, 6, and 7 feature the critical technologies needed to build DT.
3.2.1. UAVs
In terms of infrastructure emergency response, a DT on massive quantities of real-time
data provides a better understanding of the spatial-temporal characteristics of disasters
for assessment and decision-making [65]. However, different types of infrastructures have
slightly different requirements for disaster data. The spatial-temporal heterogeneous data
can be multidimension, multisourced, and multigrain. With the development of theory and
technology, data acquisition technologies, including manual modelling, wireless sensors,
and UAVs, are widely used in infrastructure disaster data acquisition [66].
UAV remote sensing is a critical technology that integrates UAVs, remote-sensing sen-
sors, communication, and other technologies to rapidly acquire the target information [67].
By carrying multiple sensors on the same flight platform, it simultaneously collects images
from one vertical and four oblique angles [68]. Aerial image processing then obtains the
subjects’ size, shape, location, nature, and interrelationship, thus quickly establishing an
extensive range of 3D scenes with accurate geographical information [69]. It has incom-
parable advantages such as low cost, strong mobility, flexible data acquisition, timeliness,
repeatability, and high resolution [70]. The data obtained can visually and genuinely reflect
the basic features of the ground.
UAV oblique photography is affected by external environmental factors, such as light
and wind speed. It cannot solve the problems of local texture distortion, feature pulling,
and feature hollowness caused by feature occlusion [71]. Although drones are flexible
in their operations, they are limited by the angle of aerial photography in carrying out
photogrammetric missions. They cannot quickly restore buildings’ more-complex facade
structures by accurately obtaining images [72]. Moreover, when UAVs are used for water
conservancy projects, most of the images obtained are dominated by the water surface,
making it difficult to carry out air-triple encryption calculations and reducing the relative
orientation accuracy of the images [73].
A more convenient and economical modelling method using mobile phones or cam-
era photos has appeared. For example, images taken with personal mobile phones and
computer-aided design (CAD) drawings were combined to semiautomatically generate
the as-is models for existing buildings with the proposed DT system [74]. The aerial pho-
tographs were combined with digital surface and elevation models from digital maps
and expert experience to generate DT models for existing highways with limited manual
workload and satisfactory accuracy [75].
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 13 of 29
3.2.2. Computer Vision and Deep Learning

With the wide application of UAV remote sensing in DT data acquisition, the automatic
understanding of visual data becomes increasingly important, making computer vision
and deep learning more closely related to disaster data.
Computer vision is an interdisciplinary field first put forward in the 1960s [76]. The
original computer vision system tried to extract the shape information of objects according
to possible objects, backgrounds, and chaotic regions [77]. With the development of image
mode, computer vision began to consider more-complex perceptual problems, such as face
recognition [78], pedestrian detection [79], and car detection [80]. The latest progress in
computer vision technology is promoted mainly by using deep-learning algorithms such as
artificial neural networks (ANNs) and convolutional neural networks (CNNs), which have
achieved remarkable success in building perceptual systems for highly complex visual
problems [81]. As a whole, computer vision and deep learning are widely used in many
fields, such as general image classification [82] and automatic transportation systems [83].
Similarly, there are many research practices based on computer vision and deep learning in
civil infrastructure emergency management.
Combining UAV remote sensing and computer vision technology provides a rapid
and automatic monitoring scheme for evaluating civil infrastructure [84]. Computer vision
is used mainly for the analysis of images and videos. It can encode information from the
whole field of vision in a noncontact way, potentially solving the disadvantages of using
contact sensors [85]. Deep learning has dramatically expanded the traditional ability of
health detection and damage assessment by using computer vision. Indices for structural
condition assessments such as cracks, spalling, and corrosion can be extracted from a
visual image of the structural surface and the infrared image of the structural components
through image classification, detection, and image segmentation, to detect the changes in
infrastructure performance levels and states [86]. Nhat-Duc et al. [87] extracted texture
features and shape descriptors from the pavement surface and trained a pavement crack
classifier by using a CNN to identify cracks on asphalt pavement. Bao et al. [88] proposed
a data anomaly detection method on the basis of using computer vision and deep learning
and used a deep neural network to automatically detect the health status of infrastructure
structures. Taking some necessary data processing measures in the data collection and
analysis stage can help computer vision and deep learning more accurately evaluate the
state of infrastructure.
Overall, technology has improved, allowing a better understanding of damages and
subsequent cost estimations for repairing or replacing infrastructure. However, there
are factors inherent in technology that add uncertainty to the viability of using them.
Estimating the cost of technology is a complex undertaking in a nondisaster setting. For
instance, the cost of a UAV generally ranges from USD 1000 to USD 10,000, and UAVs are
regarded as lower-cost means of collecting aerial imagery, as compared to crewed aerial
photography or satellite imagery analysis, but this does not mean that they are cheap
within the scale of EMCI, because the software and hardware used to analyse and process
drone-collected data, such as images and video, can also be expensive and tedious. The
use of AI to predict natural disasters might save millions of lives. However, the cost of AI
ranges from USD 6000 to USD 300,000 for a custom solution, and this cost is even greater
for more-complicated use scenarios involving multiple factors such as EMCI. That said,
deploying AI solutions varies by price and depends on the case. Likewise, deploying
a DT requires a considerable investment, in workforce, in time, and in money because
DTs are complex digital assets requiring capabilities in model-based system engineering,
modelling, data architecture, AI, and ML, to name a few. The use of DT could cost millions
or billions of dollars spread over many years and therefore needs a strong political and
economic drive.
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 14 of 29
3.3. Resilience and EMCI

Clusters 0, 1, 4, and 5 focus mainly on the resilience of critical infrastructure and
introduce the current state of research on infrastructure emergency management based
on resilience. As the scale of critical infrastructure continues to expand, cities show in-
creased vulnerability to emergencies that are increasing in frequency and impact. With the
increasing severity of urban disaster risks, the traditional reactive disaster mitigation and
emergency response strategies that are based on empirical thinking need to be transformed.
Meanwhile, urban resilience introduces a new perspective on urban disaster response from
a dynamic perspective.
First introduced in 1973, resilience means a system’s ability to restore its regular status
in response to external disturbances, measured by its ability to resist the disturbance
and the speed with which the system returns to equilibrium [89]. The resilience theory
emphasises not only a city’s ability to respond to disasters but also a city’s ability to adapt
to disasters and the ability of people to participate, make decisions, and respond in the
disaster response process [90]. As a result, there is a growing consensus among researchers
in the field of urban disaster emergency management to improve the resilience of cities,
which refers to the ability of urban systems to adapt, recover, and learn from disturbances
caused by natural and human-made disasters [91].
Infrastructure resilience assessment allows for the better prediction of hazards to miti-
gate the consequences of destructive events and better guidance on developing resilience
enhancement policies [92]. Bruneau et al. [93] proposed a conceptual framework that states
how the four dimensions (technical, organisational, social, and economic) and four primary
attributes (robustness, redundancy, speed, and intelligence) of resilience were considered in
the assessment of urban resilience. Cutter et al. [94] considered resilience assessment along
six dimensions: social, economic, institutional, infrastructural, ecological, and community
capacity. David and Simpson [95] argued that resilience indicators should include disaster
risk, social capital, community assets, infrastructure quality, and social services. The ratio
of preparedness to vulnerability is used as the resilience value. Feng et al. [96] constructed
an urban disaster resilience evaluation system with four aspects: ecological resilience,
economic resilience, engineering resilience, and social resilience.
In terms of improving the resilience of urban infrastructure, existing research has
focused on reducing disaster risks, mitigating the consequences of disasters, and accelerat-
ing social functioning recovery [97]. Before the disaster, risk assessment strengthens risk
prevention and fills in shortcomings with approaches such as the nonsimultaneous hidden
Markov model [98] and the multiscale Bayesian network model [99]. At the same time,
the critical infrastructure that affects urban resilience is determined through interdepen-
dence analysis. The best dispatching strategy is put forward to maximise the resilience of
urban infrastructure and ensure the continuity of infrastructure functions. Yang et al. [100]
proposed a comprehensive framework based on physical interdependencies to strengthen
the emergency response capacity to mitigate the impact of disasters, providing a multi-
disciplinary and interactive environment for resilience analysis. After disasters, Zhang
et al. [101] proposed an optimal allocation model for infrastructure resources to help de-
cision makers adopt the optimal resource allocation strategy; Kong et al. [102] proposed
a two-stage recovery resource allocation model considering the impact of infrastructure
interdependence on resource allocation.
However, urban resilience governance is complex and dynamic, with conflicting ob-
jectives and ambiguous implementation problems. Smart cities can use DT technology to
ensure the accuracy of information transfer through process optimisation, strengthen the
ability of public infrastructure to withstand external risks, improve urban resilience gover-
nance, and speed up urban emergency responses [103]. Table 4 shows the characteristics of
EMCI and the advantages of DT in solving these problems.
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 15 of 29
Table 4. Applicability of DT in EMCI.
Characteristics of EMCI Advantages of DT

1. DT integrates sensor data, GIS data, remote-sensing data, social
1. Collecting and analysing multisource heterogeneous perception data, crowdsourcing data, and other types of information to
data related to infrastructure disasters is essential to provide necessary data support for EMCI. Through AI, simulation, and
EMCI [104]. other intelligent technologies, data integration and visualisation
are realised.
2. Infrastructure disasters are generally large in scale, 2. DT can improve information collaboration and interoperability at the
and EMCI usually needs cooperation from different data level, reduce the difficulty of information exchange between
organisational backgrounds. Information sharing different organisations, and realise real-time and efficient
among organisations is crucial for EMCI [105]. information sharing.
3. DT obtains real-time data on geology, meteorology, and human
3. Challenges in disaster risk predictions have resulted
activities through social perception, sensor networks, and other data
in a complex interdependence between infrastructure,
collection methods, and it uses artificial intelligence such as CNNs and
society, and the natural environment [106].
SVMs to predict disasters.
4. Once the infrastructure is destroyed or fails, it may
4. ICTs such as big data, the Internet of Things, and intelligent computing
seriously endanger the national economy and public
provide DTs with powerful timeliness and can provide more-timely
interests, so EMCI needs to be timely and
efficient [107].
5. DT can perceive the dynamic changes of infrastructure in a dangerous
5. Infrastructure may suffer from many kinds of
environment, thus generating emergency plans to provide decision
disasters, with complex and diverse emergency
support for relevant personnel. Using VR to conduct safety training for
scenarios, which require greater abilities for
rescuers can improve their rescue ability in complex emergency scenarios
decision-making and from rescue personnel [108].
and effectively reduce casualties and losses.
6. EMCI involves the whole life cycle of infrastructure
6. DT comprehensively uses information technologies such as perception,
and needs to comprehensively consider multistage
calculation, and modelling to reflect the state of the whole life cycle of
factors such as designs, disaster reduction, disaster
infrastructure in real time, and it can be applied to all stages of EMCI.
preparedness, responses, and recovery [109].
4. DT Applications for EMCI

As the smart city digital twin develops, the potential to exploit the DT for emer-
gency management also expands. According to the emergency management framework
developed by the National Governors Association (NGA) in 1979, emergency manage-
ment activities can be divided into four stages: mitigation, preparation, response, and
recovery [110]. DTs provide reference models for emergency prevention and for the control
system by constructing virtual spatial scenarios of emergency events, and they provide
key platforms for emergency plans and the evaluation of intervention effects. As shown in
Figure 9, DT can be widely used in the four phases of emergency management, providing
robust support for infrastructure emergency management.
4.1. Mitigation
Critical infrastructures are vulnerable to natural disasters, accidents, and failures,
and disaster mitigation includes the activities that prevent and reduce the likelihood of
disasters in advance. Because natural disasters and accidents are difficult to control after
their occurrence, reducing disaster frequency is essential and often happens through the
life-cycle reinforcement for the infrastructure rather than in the operation stage alone.
The introduction of DT can effectively improve the intelligence of infrastructure life-cycle
management [111].
In the design stage, with the introduction of DT, related information and real-time
data can be efficiently organised to help designers make informed decisions. DTs provide
great help for the increasing demand for design collaboration by providing more-explicit
and more-objective information to relevant stakeholders [112,113]. The more significant
interaction between virtual and physical spaces can avoid unreasonable design and ensure
the effectiveness of design [114]. DT can realise real-time information sharing and manage-
needs to comprehensively consider multistage factors such as ception, calculation, and modelling to reflect the state of the whole
designs, disaster reduction, disaster preparedness, responses, life cycle of infrastructure in real time, and it can be applied to all
and recovery [109]. stages of EMCI.
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143

4. DT Applications for EMCI 16 of 29
As the smart city digital twin develops, the potential to exploit the DT for emergency
management also expands. According to the emergency management framework devel-
oped
mentby in
thetheNational Governors
construction stage Association (NGA) in 1979,
to ensure construction emergency
quality management
and progress ac-
[115]. Through
tivities can be divided into four stages: mitigation, preparation, response, and
intelligent sensing technologies such as machine vision [116], IoT sensors [117], and deep recovery
[110]. DTs provide
learning [118], DTreference models for emergency
can comprehensively monitor theprevention and
risk factors forwill
that the affect
control system
engineering
byquality
constructing virtual spatial scenarios of emergency events, and they provide
and make timely adjustments and corrections. For human–machine interactive key plat-
forms for emergency plans and the evaluation of intervention effects. As shown
construction activities (e.g., tower crane hoisting and shield tunnelling), DT can activelyin Figure
9, DT canthe
track bepersonnel
widely used in the four
behaviour phases
data of emergency
and estimate management,
the posture providing
of construction robust
machinery,
support for infrastructure emergency management.
thereby monitoring the unsafe construction behaviour [119–121].
Figure
Figure 9. Framework
9. Framework of DT
of DT applications
applications forfor infrastructure
infrastructure emergency
management.
The anomalous behaviour detection of infrastructure is the primary disaster mitigation

4.1. Mitigation
measure in the operation stage. By analysing potential risks, decision makers can take
Critical infrastructures
preventive are vulnerable
actions before catastrophic to natural disasters,
consequences occur [16].accidents, and failures,
The traditional anomaly
anddetection process is completed mainly manually by experienced professionals, andofit is
disaster mitigation includes the activities that prevent and reduce the likelihood
disasters intoadvance.
difficult Becauseintegrate
systematically natural various
disastersdata,
and leading
accidentsto are difficult
a delay to control
in detection afterDT
[122].
their
canoccurrence, reducing disaster
integrate multisource frequencydata
heterogeneous is essential and often
and efficiently happens
search, through
verify, query,the
and
manage facility information [123]. With abundant data analysis algorithms, DT can realise
the automatic detection of anomalies and dynamically evaluate the service performance of
infrastructure [124]. The detected facility anomalies can be used to train machine-learning
models to predict the occurrence of the same type of faults in the future [125]. The problem
with the anomaly detection process based on DT is that rich facility data will lead to a
heavy computational load and affect the real-time performance of detection [126,127]. The
latest anomaly detection process applied to building HVAC systems puts forward a data
feature extraction and selection method. It makes a new attempt to improve detection
efficiency, which will help to realise more real-time and automatic asset monitoring in daily
operation and maintenance management [128].
In the mitigation stage, in addition to monitoring infrastructure anomalies, DT can also
analyse factors that may lead to disasters (such as natural meteorology, geological structure,
and human activities), identify upcoming disasters, and issue early warnings. Traditional
disaster prediction methods, including onsite monitoring and expert investigation, have
high false-alarm rates. Because DT integrates artificial intelligence methods such as support
vector machines and neural networks, it is highly accurate in predicting fire scale, flood
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 17 of 29
degree, and hurricane trajectory [129–131]. At the same time, with the maturity of the
Internet of Things technology, DT can quickly and accurately share the disaster situation
and issue early warnings of the crisis to people who may be affected by the disaster [132].
4.2. Preparation
The need for preparedness activities depends on the extent to which disaster-reduction
measures fail or cannot prevent disaster occurrence. During the preparedness phase,
emergency plan management and personnel training can strengthen the ability to effectively
respond to disasters.
The emergency plan is regarded as the core element of the emergency management
life cycle and a vital knowledge source in the response stage [133]. Traditional emergency-
planning technologies cannot perceive the dynamic changes during a disaster, which
increases the difficulty of emergency rescue once a disaster occurs [134]. DT-driven emer-
gency planning can deduce the evolution trend of emergencies through knowledge retrieval
and reasoning according to the potential risks perceived in the mitigation stage [135]. Ac-
cording to the location of emergency resources, the situation of deployable personnel,
potentially dangerous areas, and the location of personnel to be rescued, the emergency
plan applicable to events is generated and presented to the users for decision-making in a
visual form [136,137]. Compared with the decision-making method centred on government
departments, interactive group decision-making supported by virtual reality technology
gives citizens more rights. Using a big interactive virtual reality screen to present complex
information in the emergency plan support communication and decision-making among
a large heterogeneous group of citizens builds consensus on crisis decision-making and
further improves urban crisis management ability [26].
In order to effectively reduce casualties and save lives during emergency rescues,
rescuers and other crucial personnel need safety training to learn the correct life-saving
skills [138]. Conventional training methods such as classroom training and emergency exer-
cises have specific effects, but the form is singular, and the sense of experience is poor [139].
Applying VR technology to emergency training can immerse students in complex and
diverse training scenarios, especially in some extreme situations that are too dangerous to
be trained in the real world [140]. VR can improve the safety and effectiveness of safety
training and increase the participation of students so that rescuers can perform better in
actual emergency rescue scenarios [141]. VR has been widely used in fire safety training,
electric power safety training, and earthquake rescue training [142–145]. In addition to
training rescue crew, VR can simulate the disaster environment and conduct emergency
evacuation drills for the masses. Virtual emergency environments can arouse cognitive
and behavioural responses, improving people’s adaptability to actual emergencies, thus
helping them to appropriately respond when disasters occur [146].
4.3. Response
In response to emergencies, various actions must be immediately taken to save lives
and mitigate property and environmental damage. These actions usually include making
disaster damage assessments and providing emergency assistance to distressed people.
During damage assessment, social sensing is pivotal in extracting and analysing un-
structured data on urban emergencies from social media platforms to evaluate disaster
phenomena [147]. Using natural language processing and data-mining technology to
analyse the semantic structure implied in the data, direct information such as disaster
occurrence time, geographical location, and damage degree can be obtained [148]. This
information is helpful in locating the damage, estimating the extent of the affected areas,
and assessing disaster losses. Social sensing provides near-real-time transitions of disaster
situations and analysis results, which can realise intelligent and quick responses to extreme
events in cities [149]. AI provides effective damage assessment approaches in addition to
social perceptions. When a disaster occurs, uncrewed aerial vehicles and remote-sensing
satellites are used to gather real-time images of disasters, and machine-learning classifica-
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 18 of 29
tion algorithms such as CNNs are used to compare the feature differences of infrastructure
images taken before and after the crisis, so as to assess the degree of damage and carry out
an efficient response [150–152].
In the response phase, allocating and scheduling emergency resources is critical to
reducing human suffering and casualties [153]. By integrating the information of the
affected areas collected by the IoT, drones, satellites, and other similar devices and by
collecting victims’ emotions and refuge needs from social media, the material allocation
scheme and the priority of rescue tasks are determined. Road monitoring, radio frequency
sensors, and other sensing terminals are used to monitor road status and crowd density
to provide rescue teams with the most appropriate direction and path and to realise the
efficient distribution of emergency resources [154].
4.4. Recovery
Postdisaster recovery includes short-term and long-term activities. Short-term re-
covery refers to restoring the affected infrastructure to minimum operating standards,
while long-term recovery activities aim to restore infrastructure to its predisaster normal
state [155]. DT application in recovery involves mainly postdisaster management and
system optimisation.
DT provides the city with a postdisaster reconstruction information platform, which
can realise information sharing among relevant departments and disaster victims and
can coordinate the opinions and requirements of all parties involved in the recovery
process [14]. IoT sensors, personal smart terminals, and other similar devices are used to
collect information such as the identity of victims, casualties, and economic losses after
the disaster [156]. By analysing and integrating this information, the government can
efficiently and accurately complete postdisaster coordination work such as disaster relief
and disaster-related information release and quickly restore regular order to the city.
Therefore, the postdisaster information in the DT platform provides urban-planning
administrators and disaster control departments with a comprehensive analysis of the
damage caused by disasters and the vulnerabilities in the disaster prevention system to
optimise urban disaster prevention practices [157]. On this basis, the loopholes in the
urban infrastructure emergency response system will be closed and improved, and the
comprehensive emergency response capability will be continuously improved to minimise
the damage in response to the next disaster [158].
5. Trends and Prospects of DT for Civil Infrastructure Emergency Management

5.1. Fast Modelling with Semantic Enrichment
In constructing DT for civil infrastructure, it is always time-consuming and labour-
intensive to convert data collected from point clouds and oblique photography to BIM
models, which takes up 90% of the time and effort needed [145]. The only possible way to
reduce the time and cost of as-is models for civil infrastructure is to use automated and
fast modelling with semantic enrichment for advancing scan-to-BIM reconstruction ap-
proaches [146]. Figure 10 shows the procedure of fast modelling with semantic enrichment.
Semantic enrichment usually refers to adding semantic information to IFC files with
domain expert knowledge for increased interoperability, fast modelling, and compliance
checking. It has been used in the inspection of highway bridges in enormous numbers
as an innovative, intelligent, and rapid solution [160]. The proposed engine added new
facts with inferred expert knowledge in if-then rule sets into IFC files of bridges and wrote
new IFC files [160,161]. Therefore, the 3D construct items generated by computer vision
approaches were enriched with identified element names and their functional relationships
rather than mere geometry attributes.
The key steps of the semantic enrichment of BIM and CIM models are acquiring new
semantics and enrichment methods. The sources include both vector data and raster data.
However, built-in rules are necessary for semantic enrichment approaches to add new
5. Trends and Prospects of DT for Civil Infrastructure Emergency Management
5.1. Fast Modelling with Semantic Enrichment
In constructing DT for civil infrastructure, it is always time-consuming and labour-
intensive to convert data collected from point clouds and oblique photography to BIM
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 models, which takes up 90% of the time and effort needed [145]. The only possible way 19 ofto
29
reduce the time and cost of as-is models for civil infrastructure is to use automated and
fast modelling with semantic enrichment for advancing scan-to-BIM reconstruction ap-
proaches [146].
information Figureand
solicited 10 shows the from
compiled procedure
domain ofexperts,
fast modelling
includingwith semantic
pairwise enrich-
topological
ment.
relationships, logical relationships, and spatial relationships [159].
Visual Sensing of Scanning
Image Surface
Rendered Objects
IFC Model
Rule Sets Ontology Engine
Enriched BIM Model
Figure10.
Figure Procedureofoffast
10.Procedure fastmodelling
modellingwith
withsemantic
semanticenrichment
enrichment(adapted
(adaptedfrom
from[159]).
[159]).
In recent years, machine-learning algorithms have been applied to the semantic en-
richment of generating models. For example, Wang et al. [162] applied graph neural
networks to classify rooms, enrich apartment models with their room types, and further
compliance-checking tasks.
5.2. Infrastructure Knowledge Management and Decision-Making

The threat of emergencies to the safety of people’s lives and property is becoming
increasingly severe, and research efforts on evacuation strategies for emergencies [163],
emergency disposal site planning [164], emergency repair simulation [165], and so on
have increased. However, an emergency response requires comprehensive and integrated
knowledge management to be efficient and effective [166]. Although numerous data have
been accumulated on civil infrastructure, the problem of quickly and accurately extracting
and obtaining the required knowledge from a large number of data in a specific emergency
needs to be addressed [167].
A knowledge graph is a knowledge database representing the concepts in the real
world and the relationships between them in a graph. Knowledge graphs use ontology
repositories to support axioms, rules, and constraints to regulate entity relationships and
the connections between objects, such as the types and attributes of entities. Knowledge
ontology in emergency risks has been conducted in the research fields of food safety
emergency management [168], public health incident emergency management [169], and
marine emergency management [170]. Existing research constructed domain ontology;
elaborated the classes, relationships, and attributes of the ontology models; and established
a unified formal representation.
Regarding disaster emergency knowledge, Jung and Chung [171] united four elements
of natural disaster events, disaster emergency tasks, disaster data, and modelling methods
to build a natural disaster knowledge graph. Other researchers also proposed ontology-
based natural disaster knowledge representation methods [172] and ontology configuration
that were based on situational posture derivation for ontology fusion [173]. Determining the
geographic ontology of emergency response knowledge and integrating technology with
GIS platforms for the spatiotemporal attributes of natural disasters are also proposed [174].
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 20 of 29
Because of the complex emergency management process and uncertainties, making

full use of the disaster history data relevant to the decision-making process is necessary.
Integrating various decision support tools, such as data mining and route selection, can
provide decision support for decision makers [175]. The current research on decision sup-
port optimises the location planning of evacuation sites, emergency supplies deployment,
and coordination among decision-making groups.
The principles and methods of evacuation site planning have been proposed from different
research perspectives, such as site suitability evaluation [176] and layout optimisation [177].
Improved particle swarm optimisation algorithms have optimised the location layout and
evacuation strategy of earthquake emergency evacuation sites [178,179]. GIS has a powerful
analysis function for spatial information, and a GIS-based evacuation decision support
system that integrates multiobjective models and algorithms for evacuation site selection
have been developed [180,181].
Postdisaster emergency material deployment requires decision makers to coordinate
various aspects, such as the stock and type of emergency materials, supply points, and
disaster sites, to quickly dispatch emergency materials [182,183]. Existing studies have
established a series of optimisation models for material deployments, such as the resource
allocation models considering route disruption and transportation time uncertainty [184],
the vehicle scheduling models aiming at the shortest transportation time [185], and the
material distribution models considering the amount of resource deployment and the
degree of disaster risk [186]. The most commonly used algorithms to solve the models are
genetic algorithms [187] and heuristic algorithms [182].
Emergency decision-making is a dynamic interaction process that requires timely
communication and coordination among relevant administrative departments. The trans-
mission and the sharing of information are essential to ensuring decision makers’ ability
to collaborate [188]. The modular design ideas and complex problem decomposition tech-
niques were used to discuss emergency decision-making systems’ information sharing
and information interaction processes between different departments [189], and they were
further developed into the synergy matrix and multiattribute decision theory to establish a
dynamic and collaborative emergency decision-making approach [190].
5.3. Quality and Secure Decision-Making

As the Centre of Digital Built Britain stated in the principles for DT, DT’s security
and quality must be trustworthy [32]. However, smart cities and critical infrastructures
are vulnerable to cyberattacks such as communications hijacking, mobile ransomware,
and manipulated sensor data. The risks can be extended to self-driving cars [191]. The
cybersecurity issues in developing and exploiting DT for smart cities are essential for re-
sponsible decision-making. Future research may include the technological and managerial
approaches against cybersecurity risks in data analysis, data management, policymak-
ing, and governance. Conventionally, the methods for cybersecurity include firewalls,
antivirus software, intrusion detection and prevention systems, and data leakage pre-
vention systems. The frontier research has identified deep-learning algorithms such as
the Boltzmann machine, deep belief networks, recurrent neural networks, convolutional
neural networks, and generative adversarial networks as possible methods to overcome
cybersecurity challenges [25]. Blockchain technology can also confront cyberattacks by
providing a distributed, trusted, and secured data environment [192]. Furthermore, policy
frameworks [193] and managerial methods [194] for cybersecurity have also been discussed
and developed.
Meanwhile, data quality in developing and exploiting DT models is also essential
to the uptake of advanced technologies. The quality of the DT models includes but is
not limited to whether the geometry of the components is accurately identified, whether
a component is modelled with the correct object type, and whether the relationships be-
tween components have been correctly established [195,196]. In developing DT models,
the quality of data collection substantially affects the model quality [48]. The International
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 21 of 29
Standard Organisation published ISO 19157 to identify data-quality elements, including

data completeness, metric accuracy, and thematic accuracy [197]. Data quality is decided
by the scanning settings (e.g., locations, orientations, and resolutions), and scanning plan-
ning is an effective method to improve data quality. Geometric feature clustering can
reduce the computational complexity of scan planning and quickly determine the optimal
scanning location [198]. At the same time, the genetic algorithm (GA) is also used to find
the optimal scanning positions and parameters that satisfy the user-defined data-quality
requirements [199]. The appropriate angular resolution setting can be estimated on the
basis of simulations and mathematical reasoning, and optimised scanning plans can be
designed [200].
6. Discussion and Future Research Direction

This paper comprehensively summarised the application of DT in EMCI through
bibliometrics analysis, introducing different indicative approaches. However, EMCI should
be improved in several ways. First, many data-related challenges should be addressed in
applying DT to EMCI. The application of DT needs the fast collection of the infrastructure-
related data through remote-sensing satellites, social perceptions, and crowdsourcing
platforms, among others, for situational awareness; however, the raw data often contain
noise, rumours, and false information. For example, the original data from social media
contain different kinds of errors and prejudices, making them untrustworthy. Therefore,
in the future research, natural language processing and machine-learning technology
should be included to filter and verify the data, providing powerful data marking and
rumour detection. Meanwhile, because of national security concerns and commercial
competitiveness, it is usually difficult to access several infrastructure data sources, which
leads to the incompleteness of disaster data. DT’s collection and analysis of disaster data
may also involve personal privacy and moral issues. Therefore, it is necessary to establish
appropriate policies and regulations for data collection, protection and management.
Second, DT uses a variety of artificial intelligence technologies to predict the disaster
dynamics for decision-making, and the explicability of the prediction is another challenge.
Therefore, in the future research, DT designers should as much as possible improve the
interpretability in the development process to improve the willingness of emergency
decision makers to accept the results of DT. Finally, at present, the research on applying
DT to EMCI tends to strengthen the capacity of infrastructure, and the research on human
emergency behaviour and responses is relatively lacking. In the future, more human
activities should be integrated into the EMCI process to better learn and describe the
interaction between human beings and infrastructure in the emergency management
process, thus improving the efficiency of emergency responses.
Despite the implications, there are still some limitations in this study. Owing to the
design of the research methods, this research pays attention only to the academic literature
retrieved from the WOS core database, and not all the literature that is used in EMCI with
digital twins are included in the scope of this review, so some clues on this topic have
been omitted. If more-extensive literature can be obtained from other databases (such as
Scopus and Google Scholar) for similar research, the research results can become more
comprehensive. In addition, thanks to the rapid development of digital twins in recent
years, research publications on digital twins in the EMCI industry show an increasing trend
year by year. The results obtained in this paper are dynamic and will change with the
passage of time. In the next few years, we should repeat the research steps in this paper to
ascertain the latest research progress in this field.
7. Conclusions
Developments in DT and smart cities have enabled advances in EMCI. Acknowl-
edging the cutting-edge technologies in DT and emergency management, we addressed
the following research question: what developments in constructing and exploiting DT
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 22 of 29
can be used to improve emergency management for civil infrastructure, and what are the
prospects of such research?
We conducted a systematic literature review of DT within the context of civil infras-
tructure and emergency management. The main research topics of DT in the field of EMCI
were determined: (1) the development of DT; (2) critical technologies applied in DT; and
(3) the resilience and emergency management of civil infrastructure.
On applying DT to civil infrastructure emergency management, we proposed a frame-
work that specifies how DT facilitated (1) life-cycle reinforcement for the mitigation stage;
(2) virtue planning, training, and decision-making for the preparation stage; (3) real-time as-
sessment and resource allocation optimisation for the response stage; and (4) collaboration
and learning for the recovery stage of emergency management.
Given the advancements in DT, we proposed that the challenges and prospects of
exploiting DT in the emergency management for civil infrastructure included (1) fast mod-
elling from vector and raster data to digital models with semantic enrichment techniques;
(2) advancing knowledge management techniques for agile and active emergency manage-
ment; and (3) providing technical, contractual, and managerial approaches for cybersecurity
and data-quality issues.
First, this study provides systematic knowledge on DT applications in the EMCI indus-
try for researchers in different fields, facilitating their understanding of the integration of
EMCI and DT in theory and promoting the development and innovation of DT applications
in EMCI. Second, the results of this review provide insights for academics and practitioners
for the development of more-feasible DTs to meet the increasing emergency management
needs of infrastructure.
Author Contributions: Conceptualisation, R.C., L.H. and S.X.; methodology, R.C. and L.H.; formal
analysis, R.C. and S.X.; data curation, R.C.; investigation, R.C., L.H. and S.X.; resources, R.C. and S.X.;
writing—original draft preparation, R.C. and S.X.; writing—review and editing, R.C., L.H. and S.X.
All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This research was funded by the Shaanxi Province Natural Science Foundation, grant
number 2021KWZ-28, and by the Science and Technology Project of the Sichuan Transportation
Department (2022-ZL-04). The APC was funded by 2022-ZL-04.
Data Availability Statement: Some or all of the data that support the findings of this study are
available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
References
1. Goff, J. New Zealand’s tsunami death toll rises. Nat. Hazard. 2021, 107, 1925–1934. [CrossRef]
2. Klaver, M.H.; Luiijf, H.; Nieuwenhuijs, A.N.; van Os, N.; Oskam, V. Critical infrastructure assessment by emergency management.
In Proceedings of the Critical Information Infrastructures Security: 10th International Conference, CRITIS 2015, Berlin, Germany,
5–7 October 2015; Revised Selected Papers 10. Springer: Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany, 2016; pp. 79–90.
3. Taubenböck, H.; Goseberg, N.; Lämmel, G.; Setiadi, N.; Schlurmann, T.; Nagel, K.; Siegert, F.; Birkmann, J.; Traub, K.-P.; Dech, S.
Risk reduction at the “Last-Mile”: An attempt to turn science into action by the example of Padang, Indonesia. Nat. Hazard. 2013,
65, 915–945. [CrossRef]
4. Novelo-Casanova, D.A.; Suárez, G.; Cabral-Cano, E.; Fernández-Torres, E.A.; Fuentes-Mariles, O.A.; Havazli, E.; Jaimes, M.Á.;
López-Espinoza, E.D.; Martin-Del Pozzo, A.L.; Morales-Barrera, W.V. The Risk Atlas of Mexico City, Mexico: A tool for decision-
making and disaster prevention. Nat. Hazard. 2021, 111, 411–437. [CrossRef]
5. Lu, Y.; Li, R. Rebuilding resilient homeland: An NGO-led post-Lushan earthquake experimental reconstruction program. Nat.
Hazard. 2020, 104, 853–882. [CrossRef]
6. Gjøsæter, T.; Radianti, J.; Chen, W. Universal design of ICT for emergency management: A systematic literature review and
research agenda. In Proceedings of the Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Methods, Technologies, and Users:
12th International Conference, UAHCI 2018, Held as Part of HCI International 2018, Las Vegas, NV, USA, 15–20 July 2018;
Proceedings, Part I 12. Springer: Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany, 2018; pp. 63–74.
7. Hamadache, B.; Seridi-Bouchelaghem, H.; Farah, N. A significant core structure inside the social network evolutionary process.
Soc. Netw. Anal. Min. 2016, 6, 38. [CrossRef]
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 23 of 29
8. Pohl, D.; Bouchachia, A.; Hellwagner, H. Automatic identification of crisis-related sub-events using clustering. In Proceedings
of the 2012 11th International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications, Boca Raton, FL, USA, 12–15 December 2012;
pp. 333–338.
9. Fragkos, G.; Apostolopoulos, P.A.; Tsiropoulou, E.E. ESCAPE: Evacuation strategy through clustering and autonomous operation
in public safety systems. Future Internet 2019, 11, 20. [CrossRef]
10. Wang, H.; Ye, H.; Liu, L.; Li, J. Evaluation and Obstacle Analysis of Emergency Response Capability in China. Int. J. Environ. Res.
Public Health 2022, 19, 10200. [CrossRef]
11. Fan, C.; Zhang, C.; Yahja, A.; Mostafavi, A. Disaster City Digital Twin: A vision for integrating artificial and human intelligence
for disaster management. Int. J. Inf. Manag. 2021, 56, 102049. [CrossRef]
12. Sasaki, J.; Kitsuya, M. Development and evaluation of regional information sharing system (RISS) for disaster risk reduction. Inf.
Syst. Front. 2021, 23, 1203–1211. [CrossRef]
13. White, G.; Zink, A.; Codecá, L.; Clarke, S. A digital twin smart city for citizen feedback. Cities 2021, 110, 103064. [CrossRef]
14. Ford, D.N.; Wolf, C.M. Smart Cities with Digital Twin Systems for Disaster Management. J. Manag. Eng. 2020, 36, 04020027.
[CrossRef]
15. Yu, D.; He, Z. Digital twin-driven intelligence disaster prevention and mitigation for infrastructure: Advances, challenges, and
opportunities. Nat. Hazard. 2022, 112, 1–36. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
16. Doğan, Ö.; Şahin, O.; Karaarslan, E. Digital twin based disaster management system proposal: DT-DMS. J. Emerg. Comput. Technol.
2021, 1, 25–30.
17. Liu, C.; Ouyang, M.; Wang, N.; Mao, Z.; Xu, X. A heuristic method to identify optimum seismic retrofit strategies for critical
infrastructure systems. Comput. Aided Civ. Infrastruct. Eng. 2021, 36, 996–1012. [CrossRef]
18. Ragini, J.R.; Anand, P.R.; Bhaskar, V. Big data analytics for disaster response and recovery through sentiment analysis. Int. J. Inf.
Manag. 2018, 42, 13–24. [CrossRef]
19. Cooner, A.J.; Shao, Y.; Campbell, J.B. Detection of urban damage using remote sensing and machine learning algorithms:
Revisiting the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Remote Sens. 2016, 8, 868. [CrossRef]
20. Zhu, J.; Wang, X.; Chen, M.; Wu, P.; Kim, M.J. Integration of BIM and GIS: IFC geometry transformation to shapefile using
enhanced open-source approach. Autom. Constr. 2019, 106, 102859. [CrossRef]
21. Lu, Q.; Parlikad, A.K.; Woodall, P.; Don Ranasinghe, G.; Xie, X.; Liang, Z.; Konstantinou, E.; Heaton, J.; Schooling, J. Developing a
digital twin at building and city levels: Case study of West Cambridge campus. J. Manag. Eng. 2020, 36, 05020004. [CrossRef]
22. Zhang, C.; Fan, C.; Yao, W.; Hu, X.; Mostafavi, A. Social media for intelligent public information and warning in disasters: An
interdisciplinary review. Int. J. Inf. Manag. 2019, 49, 190–207. [CrossRef]
23. Haworth, B.; Bruce, E. A review of volunteered geographic information for disaster management. Geogr. Compass 2015, 9, 237–250.
[CrossRef]
24. Cheng, M.-Y.; Chiu, K.-C.; Hsieh, Y.-M.; Yang, I.-T.; Chou, J.-S.; Wu, Y.-W. BIM integrated smart monitoring technique for building
fire prevention and disaster relief. Autom. Constr. 2017, 84, 14–30. [CrossRef]
25. Chen, D.; Wawrzynski, P.; Lv, Z. Cyber security in smart cities: A review of deep learning-based applications and case studies.
Sustain. Cities Soc. 2021, 66, 102655. [CrossRef]
26. Dembski, F.; Wössner, U.; Letzgus, M.; Ruddat, M.; Yamu, C. Urban digital twins for smart cities and citizens: The case study of
Herrenberg, Germany. Sustainability 2020, 12, 2307. [CrossRef]
27. Rosen, R.; von Wichert, G.; Lo, G.; Bettenhausen, K.D. About The Importance of Autonomy and Digital Twins for the Future of
Manufacturing. IFAC-Pap. 2015, 48, 567–572. [CrossRef]
28. Grieves, M. Virtually Perfect: Driving Innovative and Lean Products through Product Lifecycle Management; Space Coast Press: Cocoa
Beach, FL, USA, 2011.
29. Grieves, M.; Vickers, J. Digital Twin: Mitigating Unpredictable, Undesirable Emergent Behavior in Complex Systems. In
Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Complex Systems: New Findings and Approaches; Kahlen, F.-J., Flumerfelt, S., Alves, A., Eds.; Springer
International Publishing: Cham, Switzerland, 2017; pp. 85–113.
30. Glaessgen, E.H.; Stargel, D. In The Digital Twin Paradigm for Future NASA and U.S. Air Force Vehicles. In Proceedings of
the 53rd AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials Conference 20th AIAA/ASME/AHS
Adaptive Structures Conference, Honolulu, HI, USA, 23–26 April 2012.
31. Catapult, H.V.M. Feasibility of an immersive digital twin: The definition of a digital twin and discussions around the benefit of
immersion. In UK: HVM Catapult Visualisation and VR Forum; Digital Catapult: London, UK, 2018.
32. Bolton, A.; Enzer, M.; Schooling, J. The Gemini Principles: Guiding Values for the National Digital Twin and Information Management
Framework; Centre for Digital Built Britain and Digital Framework Task Group: London, UK, 2018.
33. Deng, M.; Menassa, C.C.; Kamat, V.R. From BIM to digital twins: A systematic review of the evolution of intelligent building
representations in the AEC-FM industry. J. Inf. Technol. Constr. 2021, 26, 58–83. [CrossRef]
34. Lu, Q.; Xie, X.; Parlikad, A.K.; Schooling, J.M.; Konstantinou, E. Moving from building information models to digital twins for
operation and maintenance. Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. Smart Infrastruct. Constr. 2020, 174, 46–56. [CrossRef]
35. Tao, F.; Zhang, H.; Liu, A.; Nee, A.Y.C. Digital Twin in Industry: State-of-the-Art. IEEE Trans. Ind. Inf. 2019, 15, 2405–2415.
[CrossRef]
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 24 of 29
36. Zhang, J.; Hua, X.S.; Huang, J.; Shen, X.; Chen, J.; Zhou, Q.; Fu, Z.; Zhao, Y. City brain: Practice of large-scale artificial intelligence
in the real world. IET Smart Cities 2019, 1, 28–37. [CrossRef]
37. Schluse, M.; Rossmann, J. In From simulation to experimentable digital twins: Simulation-based development and operation of
complex technical systems. In Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering (ISSE), Edinburgh,
UK, 3–5 October 2016; pp. 1–6.
38. Boje, C.; Guerriero, A.; Kubicki, S.; Rezgui, Y. Towards a semantic Construction Digital Twin: Directions for future research.
Autom. Constr. 2020, 114, 103179. [CrossRef]
39. Lin, K.; Xu, Y.-L.; Lu, X.; Guan, Z.; Li, J. Digital twin-based collapse fragility assessment of a long-span cable-stayed bridge under
strong earthquakes. Autom. Constr. 2021, 123, 103547. [CrossRef]
40. Döllner, J. Geospatial artificial intelligence: Potentials of machine learning for 3D point clouds and geospatial digital twins. PFG J.
Photogramm. Remote Sens. Geoinf. Sci. 2020, 88, 15–24. [CrossRef]
41. Zheng, Y.; Wang, S.; Li, Q.; Li, B. Fringe projection profilometry by conducting deep learning from its digital twin. Opt. Express
2020, 28, 36568–36583. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
42. Kubicki, S.; Guerriero, A.; Schwartz, L.; Daher, E.; Idris, B. Assessment of synchronous interactive devices for BIM project
coordination: Prospective ergonomics approach. Autom. Constr. 2019, 101, 160–178. [CrossRef]
43. Belsky, M.; Sacks, R.; Brilakis, I. Semantic enrichment for building information modeling. Comput. Aided Civ. Infrastruct. Eng.
2016, 31, 261–274. [CrossRef]
44. Zhao, X. A scientometric review of global BIM research: Analysis and visualization. Autom. Constr. 2017, 80, 37–47. [CrossRef]
45. Lee, Y.-C.; Eastman, C.M.; Lee, J.-K. Validations for ensuring the interoperability of data exchange of a building information
model. Autom. Constr. 2015, 58, 176–195. [CrossRef]
46. Pauwels, P.; Van Deursen, D.; Verstraeten, R.; De Roo, J.; De Meyer, R.; Van de Walle, R.; Van Campenhout, J. A semantic rule
checking environment for building performance checking. Autom. Constr. 2011, 20, 506–518. [CrossRef]
47. Pauwels, P.; Zhang, S.; Lee, Y.-C. Semantic web technologies in AEC industry: A literature overview. Autom. Constr. 2017, 73,
145–165. [CrossRef]
48. Wang, Q.; Li, J.; Tang, X.; Zhang, X. How data quality affects model quality in scan-to-BIM: A case study of MEP scenes. Autom.
Constr. 2022, 144, 104598. [CrossRef]
49. Tang, P.; Huber, D.; Akinci, B.; Lipman, R.; Lytle, A. Automatic reconstruction of as-built building information models from
laser-scanned point clouds: A review of related techniques. Autom. Constr. 2010, 19, 829–843. [CrossRef]
50. Thomas, H.; Qi, C.R.; Deschaud, J.-E.; Marcotegui, B.; Goulette, F.; Guibas, L.J. KPConv: Flexible and deformable convolution
for point clouds. In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF International Conference on Computer Vision, Seoul, Republic of Korea,
27 October–2 November 2019; pp. 6411–6420.
51. Wang, Y.; Sun, Y.; Liu, Z.; Sarma, S.E.; Bronstein, M.M.; Solomon, J.M. Dynamic graph CNN for learning on point clouds. Acm
Trans. Graph. (Tog) 2019, 38, 1–12. [CrossRef]
52. Xiong, X.; Adan, A.; Akinci, B.; Huber, D. Automatic creation of semantically rich 3D building models from laser scanner data.
Autom. Constr. 2013, 31, 325–337. [CrossRef]
53. Fan, C.; Mostafavi, A. Metanetwork framework for performance analysis of disaster management system-of-systems. IEEE Syst. J.
2019, 14, 1265–1276. [CrossRef]
54. Kwon, J.-W.; Yun, S.-J.; Kim, W.-T. A semantic data-based distributed computing framework to accelerate digital twin services for
large-scale disasters. Sensors 2022, 22, 6749. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
55. Akter, S.; Wamba, S.F. Big data and disaster management: A systematic review and agenda for future research. Ann. Oper. Res.
2019, 283, 939–959. [CrossRef]
56. Ofli, F.; Meier, P.; Imran, M.; Castillo, C.; Tuia, D.; Rey, N.; Briant, J.; Millet, P.; Reinhard, F.; Parkan, M. Combining human
computing and machine learning to make sense of big (aerial) data for disaster response. Big Data 2016, 4, 47–59. [CrossRef]
[PubMed]
57. Hu, Z.-Z.; Tian, P.-L.; Li, S.-W.; Zhang, J.-P. BIM-based integrated delivery technologies for intelligent MEP management in the
operation and maintenance phase. Adv. Eng. Softw. 2018, 115, 1–16. [CrossRef]
58. Hirohara, Y.; Ishida, T.; Uchida, N.; Shibata, Y. Proposal of a disaster information cloud system for disaster prevention and
reduction. In Proceedings of the 2017 31st International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications
Workshops (WAINA), Taipei, Taiwan, 27–29 March 2017; pp. 664–667.
59. Kim, K.; Cho, Y.K.; Kim, K. BIM-based decision-making framework for scaffolding planning. J. Manag. Eng. 2018, 34, 04018046.
[CrossRef]
60. Gil, J. City Information Modelling: Digital Planning for Sustainable Cities. Built Environ. 2020, 46, 497–500. [CrossRef]
61. Heaton, J.; Parlikad, A.K.; Schooling, J. A Building Information Modelling approach to the alignment of organisational objectives
to Asset Information Requirements. Autom. Constr. 2019, 104, 14–26. [CrossRef]
62. Silva, B.N.; Khan, M.; Han, K. Integration of Big Data analytics embedded smart city architecture with RESTful web of things for
efficient service provision and energy management. Future Gener. Comput. Syst. 2020, 107, 975–987. [CrossRef]
63. Cheng, M.-Y.; Wu, Y.-W. Multi-agent-based data exchange platform for bridge disaster prevention: A case study in Taiwan. Nat.
Hazard. 2013, 69, 311–326. [CrossRef]
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 25 of 29
64. Ke, S.; Xiang, F.; Zhang, Z.; Zuo, Y. A enhanced interaction framework based on VR, AR and MR in digital twin. Procedia CIRP
2019, 83, 753–758. [CrossRef]
65. Sun, W.; Bocchini, P.; Davison, B.D. Applications of artificial intelligence for disaster management. Nat. Hazard. 2020, 103,
2631–2689. [CrossRef]
66. Li, L.; Aslam, S.; Wileman, A.; Perinpanayagam, S. Digital twin in aerospace industry: A gentle introduction. IEEE Access 2021,
10, 9543–9562. [CrossRef]
67. Osco, L.P.; Junior, J.M.; Ramos, A.P.M.; de Castro Jorge, L.A.; Fatholahi, S.N.; de Andrade Silva, J.; Matsubara, E.T.; Pistori, H.;
Gonçalves, W.N.; Li, J. A review on deep learning in UAV remote sensing. Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinf. 2021, 102, 102456.
[CrossRef]
68. Aasen, H.; Honkavaara, E.; Lucieer, A.; Zarco-Tejada, P.J. Quantitative remote sensing at ultra-high resolution with UAV
spectroscopy: A review of sensor technology, measurement procedures, and data correction workflows. Remote Sens. 2018,
10, 1091. [CrossRef]
69. Zhang, C.; Tang, Z.; Zhang, M.; Wang, B.; Hou, L. Developing a more reliable aerial photography-based method for acquiring
freeway traffic data. Remote Sens. 2022, 14, 2202. [CrossRef]
70. Yao, H.; Qin, R.; Chen, X. Unmanned aerial vehicle for remote sensing applications—A review. Remote Sens. 2019, 11, 1443.
[CrossRef]
71. Liu, S.; Cheng, J.; Liang, L.; Bai, H.; Dang, W. Light-weight semantic segmentation network for UAV remote sensing images. IEEE
J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Obs. Remote Sens. 2021, 14, 8287–8296. [CrossRef]
72. Torresan, C.; Berton, A.; Carotenuto, F.; Di Gennaro, S.F.; Gioli, B.; Matese, A.; Miglietta, F.; Vagnoli, C.; Zaldei, A.; Wallace, L.
Forestry applications of UAVs in Europe: A review. Int. J. Remote Sens. 2017, 38, 2427–2447. [CrossRef]
73. Yuan, C.; Zhang, Y.; Liu, Z. A survey on technologies for automatic forest fire monitoring, detection, and fighting using unmanned
aerial vehicles and remote sensing techniques. Can. J. For. Res. 2015, 45, 783–792. [CrossRef]
74. Lu, Q.; Chen, L.; Li, S.; Pitt, M. Semi-automatic geometric digital twinning for existing buildings based on images and CAD
drawings. Autom. Constr. 2020, 115, 103183. [CrossRef]
75. Jiang, F.; Ma, L.; Broyd, T.; Chen, W.; Luo, H. Building digital twins of existing highways using map data based on engineering
expertise. Autom. Constr. 2022, 134, 104081. [CrossRef]
76. Dong, C.-Z.; Catbas, F.N. A review of computer vision–based structural health monitoring at local and global levels. Struct. Health
Monit. 2021, 20, 692–743. [CrossRef]
77. Voulodimos, A.; Doulamis, N.; Doulamis, A.; Protopapadakis, E. Deep learning for computer vision: A brief review. Comput.
Intell. Neurosci. 2018, 2018, 7068349. [CrossRef]
78. Zhang, K.; Zhang, Z.; Li, Z.; Qiao, Y. Joint face detection and alignment using multitask cascaded convolutional networks. IEEE
Signal Process Lett. 2016, 23, 1499–1503. [CrossRef]
79. Zhang, H.-B.; Zhang, Y.-X.; Zhong, B.; Lei, Q.; Yang, L.; Du, J.-X.; Chen, D.-S. A comprehensive survey of vision-based human
action recognition methods. Sensors 2019, 19, 1005. [CrossRef]
80. Guo, M.-H.; Xu, T.-X.; Liu, J.-J.; Liu, Z.-N.; Jiang, P.-T.; Mu, T.-J.; Zhang, S.-H.; Martin, R.R.; Cheng, M.-M.; Hu, S.-M. Attention
mechanisms in computer vision: A survey. Comput. Vis. Media 2022, 8, 331–368. [CrossRef]
81. Wu, S.; Zhong, S.; Liu, Y. Deep residual learning for image steganalysis. Multimed. Tools Appl. 2018, 77, 10437–10453. [CrossRef]
82. Yeum, C.M.; Choi, J.; Dyke, S.J. Automated region-of-interest localization and classification for vision-based visual assessment of
civil infrastructure. Struct. Health Monit. 2019, 18, 675–689. [CrossRef]
83. Simonyan, K.; Zisserman, A. Very deep convolutional networks for large-scale image recognition. arXiv 2014, arXiv:1409.1556.
84. Feng, D.; Feng, M.Q. Computer vision for SHM of civil infrastructure: From dynamic response measurement to damage
detection–A review. Eng. Struct. 2018, 156, 105–117. [CrossRef]
85. Spencer, B.F., Jr.; Hoskere, V.; Narazaki, Y. Advances in computer vision-based civil infrastructure inspection and monitoring.
Engineering 2019, 5, 199–222. [CrossRef]
86. Ye, X.-W.; Dong, C.-Z.; Liu, T. A review of machine vision-based structural health monitoring: Methodologies and applications.
J. Sens. 2016, 2016, 7103039. [CrossRef]
87. Nhat-Duc, H.; Nguyen, Q.-L.; Tran, V.-D. Automatic recognition of asphalt pavement cracks using metaheuristic optimized edge
detection algorithms and convolution neural network. Autom. Constr. 2018, 94, 203–213. [CrossRef]
88. Zhang, A.; Wang, K.C.; Li, B.; Yang, E.; Dai, X.; Peng, Y.; Fei, Y.; Liu, Y.; Li, J.Q.; Chen, C. Automated pixel-level pavement crack
detection on 3D asphalt surfaces using a deep-learning network. Comput. Aided Civ. Infrastruct. Eng. 2017, 32, 805–819. [CrossRef]
89. Holling, C.S. Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 1973, 4, 1–23. [CrossRef]
90. Yang, Y.; Ng, S.T.; Zhou, S.; Xu, F.J.; Li, H. A physics-based framework for analyzing the resilience of interdependent civil
infrastructure systems: A climatic extreme event case in Hong Kong. Sustain. Cities Soc. 2019, 47, 101485. [CrossRef]
91. Manyena, S.B. The concept of resilience revisited. Disasters 2006, 30, 433–450. [CrossRef]
92. Liu, W.; Shan, M.; Zhang, S.; Zhao, X.; Zhai, Z. Resilience in Infrastructure Systems: A Comprehensive Review. Buildings 2022,
12, 759. [CrossRef]
93. Bruneau, M.; Chang, S.E.; Eguchi, R.T.; Lee, G.C.; O'Rourke, T.D.; Reinhorn, A.M.; Shinozuka, M.; Tierney, K.; Wallace, W.A.; von
Winterfeldt, D. A Framework to Quantitatively Assess and Enhance the Seismic Resilience of Communities. Earthq. Spectra 2003,
19, 733–752. [CrossRef]
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 26 of 29
94. Cutter, S.L.; Barnes, L.; Berry, M.; Burton, C.; Evans, E.; Tate, E.; Webb, J. A place-based model for understanding community
resilience to natural disasters. Glob. Environ. Chang. 2008, 18, 598–606. [CrossRef]
95. Simpson, D.M.; Katirai, M. DRAFT Indicator Issues and Proposed Framework for a Disaster Preparedness Index (DPi); University of
Louisville: Louisville, KY, USA, 2006.
96. Feng, C.; Wu, J.; Du, J. Construction and Evaluation of a Safe Community Evaluation Index System—A Study of Urban China.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 10607. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
97. Brucherseifer, E.; Winter, H.; Mentges, A.; Mühlhäuser, M.; Hellmann, M. Digital Twin conceptual framework for improving
critical infrastructure resilience. at-Automatisierungstechnik 2021, 69, 1062–1080. [CrossRef]
98. Zhao, S.; Liu, X.; Zhuo, Y. Hybrid Hidden Markov Models for resilience metrics in a dynamic infrastructure system. Reliab. Eng.
Syst. Saf. 2017, 164, 84–97. [CrossRef]
99. Johansen, C.; Tien, I. Probabilistic multi-scale modeling of interdependencies between critical infrastructure systems for resilience.
Sustain. Resilient Infrastruct. 2018, 3, 1–15. [CrossRef]
100. Yang, Y.; Ng, S.T.; Zhou, S.; Xu, F.J.; Li, H. Physics-based resilience assessment of interdependent civil infrastructure systems with
condition-varying components: A case with stormwater drainage system and road transport system. Sustain. Cities Soc. 2020,
54, 101886. [CrossRef]
101. Zhang, C.; Kong, J.-J.; Simonovic, S.P. Restoration resource allocation model for enhancing resilience of interdependent infrastruc-
ture systems. Saf. Sci. 2018, 102, 169–177. [CrossRef]
102. Kong, J.; Zhang, C.; Simonovic, S.P. A Two-Stage Restoration Resource Allocation Model for Enhancing the Resilience of
Interdependent Infrastructure Systems. Sustainability 2019, 11, 5143. [CrossRef]
103. Wang, C.; Li, X.; Li, S. How Does the Concept of Resilient City Work in Practice? Planning and Achievements. Land 2021, 10, 1319.
[CrossRef]
104. Harrison, S.; Johnson, P. Challenges in the adoption of crisis crowdsourcing and social media in Canadian emergency management.
Gov. Inf. Q. 2019, 36, 501–509. [CrossRef]
105. Wu, Q.; Han, J.; Lei, C.; Ding, W.; Li, B.; Zhang, L. The challenges and countermeasures in emergency management after the
establishment of the ministry of emergency management of China: A case study. Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduct. 2021, 55, 102075.
[CrossRef]
106. Mijovic, V.; Tomasevic, N.; Janev, V.; Stanojevic, M.; Vranes, S. Emergency Management in Critical Infrastructures: A Complex-
Event-Processing Paradigm. J. Syst. Sci. Syst. Eng. 2019, 28, 37–62. [CrossRef]
107. Feng, Y.; Xiang-Yang, L. Improving emergency response to cascading disasters: Applying case-based reasoning towards urban
critical infrastructure. Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduct. 2018, 30, 244–256. [CrossRef]
108. Zhang, Y.; Zheng, J.; Yi, M.; Ma, H. Influencing factors and mechanisms of inter-organization collaboration obstacles in emergency
rescue for urban rail transit. Adv. Mech. Eng. 2017, 9, 1687814017698640. [CrossRef]
109. Yang, C.; Su, G.; Chen, J. Using big data to enhance crisis response and disaster resilience for a smart city. In Proceedings of the
2017 IEEE 2nd International Conference on Big Data Analysis (ICBDA), Beijing, China, 10–12 March 2017; pp. 504–507.
110. Reddick, C. Information technology and emergency management: Preparedness and planning in US states. Disasters 2011, 35,
45–61. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
111. Sepasgozar, S.M.; Hui, F.K.P.; Shirowzhan, S.; Foroozanfar, M.; Yang, L.; Aye, L. Lean practices using building information
modeling (BIM) and digital twinning for sustainable construction. Sustainability 2020, 13, 161. [CrossRef]
112. Wang, Y.; Liu, A.; Tao, F.; Nee, A. Digital twin driven conceptual design. In Digital Twin Driven Smart Design; Elsevier: Amsterdam,
The Netherlands, 2020; pp. 33–66.
113. Zhang, H.; Zhang, M.; Zhang, C.; Hou, L. Formulating a GIS-based geometric design quality assessment model for Mountain
highways. Accid. Anal. Prev. 2021, 157, 106172. [CrossRef]
114. Soust-Verdaguer, B.; Llatas, C.; García-Martínez, A. Critical review of BIM-based LCA method to buildings. Energy Build. 2017,
136, 110–120. [CrossRef]
115. Tao, F.; Qi, Q.; Wang, L.; Nee, A. Digital twins and cyber–physical systems toward smart manufacturing and industry 4.0:
Correlation and comparison. Engineering 2019, 5, 653–661. [CrossRef]
116. Fang, W.; Zhong, B.; Zhao, N.; Love, P.E.; Luo, H.; Xue, J.; Xu, S. A deep learning-based approach for mitigating falls from height
with computer vision: Convolutional neural network. Adv. Eng. Inf. 2019, 39, 170–177. [CrossRef]
117. Kazmi, Z.A.; Sodangi, M. Modeling the constraints to the utilization of the internet of things in managing supply chains of off-site
construction: An approach toward sustainable construction. Buildings 2022, 12, 388. [CrossRef]
118. Cudzik, J.; Radziszewski, K. Artificial intelligence aided architectural design. Comput. Better Tomorrow 2018, 1, 77–84.
119. Jiang, W.; Ding, L.; Zhou, C. Digital twin: Stability analysis for tower crane hoisting safety with a scale model. Autom. Constr.
2022, 138, 104257. [CrossRef]
120. Hou, L.; Wu, S.; Zhang, G.; Tan, Y.; Wang, X. Literature review of digital twins applications in construction workforce safety. Appl.
Sci. 2020, 11, 339. [CrossRef]
121. Wu, S.; Hou, L.; Zhang, G.K.; Chen, H. Real-time mixed reality-based visual warning for construction workforce safety. Autom.
Constr. 2022, 139, 104252. [CrossRef]
122. Motawa, I.; Almarshad, A. A knowledge-based BIM system for building maintenance. Autom. Constr. 2013, 29, 173–182.
[CrossRef]
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 27 of 29
123. Lu, Q.; Xie, X.; Parlikad, A.K.; Schooling, J.M. Digital twin-enabled anomaly detection for built asset monitoring in operation and
maintenance. Autom. Constr. 2020, 118, 103277. [CrossRef]
124. Shim, C.-S.; Dang, N.-S.; Lon, S.; Jeon, C.-H. Development of a bridge maintenance system for prestressed concrete bridges using
3D digital twin model. Struct. Infrastruct. Eng. 2019, 15, 1319–1332. [CrossRef]
125. Hou, L.; Chen, H.; Zhang, G.; Wang, X. Deep learning-based applications for safety management in the AEC industry: A review.
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11, 821. [CrossRef]
126. Jung, D.; Sundström, C. A combined data-driven and model-based residual selection algorithm for fault detection and isolation.
IEEE Trans. Control Syst. Technol. 2017, 27, 616–630. [CrossRef]
127. Chen, H.; Hou, L.; Zhang, G.K.; Wu, S. Using Context-Guided data Augmentation, lightweight CNN, and proximity detection
techniques to improve site safety monitoring under occlusion conditions. Saf. Sci. 2023, 158, 105958. [CrossRef]
128. Xie, X.; Merino, J.; Moretti, N.; Pauwels, P.; Chang, J.Y.; Parlikad, A. Digital twin enabled fault detection and diagnosis process for
building HVAC systems. Autom. Constr. 2023, 146, 104695. [CrossRef]
129. Mitsopoulos, I.; Mallinis, G. A data-driven approach to assess large fire size generation in Greece. Nat. Hazard. 2017, 88, 1591–1607.
[CrossRef]
130. Huang, Y.; Jin, L.; Zhao, H.-S.; Huang, X.-Y. Fuzzy neural network and LLE Algorithm for forecasting precipitation in tropical
cyclones: Comparisons with interpolation method by ECMWF and stepwise regression method. Nat. Hazard. 2018, 91, 201–220.
[CrossRef]
131. Ghosh, T.; Krishnamurti, T. Improvements in hurricane intensity forecasts from a multimodel superensemble utilizing a
generalized neural network technique. Weather Forecast. 2018, 33, 873–885. [CrossRef]
132. Gattulli, V.; Franchi, F.; Graziosi, F.; Marotta, A.; Rinaldi, C.; Potenza, F.; Sabatino, U.D. Design and evaluation of 5G-based
architecture supporting data-driven digital twins updating and matching in seismic monitoring. Bull. Earthq. Eng. 2022, 20,
4345–4365. [CrossRef]
133. Diniz, V.B.; Borges, M.R.; Gomes, J.O.; Canós, J.H. Decision making support in emergency response. In Encyclopedia of Decision
Making and Decision Support Technologies; IGI Global: Hershey, PA, USA, 2008; pp. 184–191.
134. Zhang, F.; Qiao, Q.; Wang, J.; Liu, P. Data-driven AI emergency planning in process industry. J. Loss Prev. Process Ind. 2022,
76, 104740. [CrossRef]
135. Zhang, H.; Wang, R.; Wang, C. Monitoring and warning for digital twin-driven mountain geological disaster. In Proceedings of
the 2019 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation (ICMA), Tianjin, China, 4–7 August 2019; pp. 502–507.
136. Huang, W.D.; Ding, B.L.; Yan, L. The design of dynamic response system based on digital emergency plan. In Advanced Materials
Research; Trans Tech Publications: Zurich, Switzerland, 2013; pp. 1855–1860.
137. Kwok, P.K.; Yan, M.; Qu, T.; Lau, H.Y. User acceptance of virtual reality technology for practicing digital twin-based crisis
management. Int. J. Comput. Integr. Manuf. 2021, 34, 874–887. [CrossRef]
138. Engelbrecht, H.; Lindeman, R.W.; Hoermann, S. A SWOT analysis of the field of virtual reality for firefighter training. Front. Rob.
AI 2019, 6, 101. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
139. Hsu, E.B.; Li, Y.; Bayram, J.D.; Levinson, D.; Yang, S.; Monahan, C. State of virtual reality based disaster preparedness and
response training. PLoS Curr. 2013, 5, ecurrents.dis.1ea2b2e71237d5337fa53982a38b2aff.
140. Pedram, S.; Ogie, R.; Palmisano, S.; Farrelly, M.; Perez, P. Cost–benefit analysis of virtual reality-based training for emergency
rescue workers: A socio-technical systems approach. Virtual Real. 2021, 25, 1071–1086. [CrossRef]
141. Sebillo, M.; Vitiello, G.; Paolino, L.; Ginige, A. Training emergency responders through augmented reality mobile interfaces.
Multimed. Tools Appl. 2016, 75, 9609–9622. [CrossRef]
142. Tanaka, E.H.; Paludo, J.A.; Cordeiro, C.S.; Domingues, L.R.; Gadbem, E.V.; Euflausino, A. Using Immersive Virtual Reality for
Electrical Substation Training. In Proceedings of the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS)
International Conference on e-Learning, Las Palmas, Spain, 21–24 July 2015.
143. Hoang, R.V.; Sgambati, M.R.; Brown, T.J.; Coming, D.S.; Harris, F.C., Jr. VFire: Immersive wildfire simulation and visualization.
Comput. Graph. 2010, 34, 655–664. [CrossRef]
144. Baijia, Z.; Qunlin, J. Application of virtual reality simulation technology to earthquake emergency drill. J. Nat. Disasters 2011, 20,
59–64.
145. Chen, H.; Hou, L.; Zhang, G.K.; Moon, S. Development of BIM, IoT and AR/VR technologies for fire safety and upskilling. Autom.
Constr. 2021, 125, 103631. [CrossRef]
146. Cao, L.; Lin, J.; Li, N. A virtual reality based study of indoor fire evacuation after active or passive spatial exploration. Comput.
Hum. Behav. 2019, 90, 37–45. [CrossRef]
147. Atefeh, F.; Khreich, W. A survey of techniques for event detection in twitter. Comput. Intell. 2015, 31, 132–164. [CrossRef]
148. Tkachenko, N.; Jarvis, S.; Procter, R. Predicting floods with Flickr tags. PLoS ONE 2017, 12, e0172870. [CrossRef]
149. Wang, Y.; Taylor, J.E. Urban crisis detection technique: A spatial and data driven approach based on latent Dirichlet allocation
(LDA) topic modeling. In Proceedings of the 2018 Construction Research Congress, New Orleans, LA, USA, 2–4 April 2018.
150. Axel, C.; van Aardt, J. Building damage assessment using airborne lidar. J. Appl. Remote Sens. 2017, 11, 046024. [CrossRef]
151. Cervone, G.; Sava, E.; Huang, Q.; Schnebele, E.; Harrison, J.; Waters, N. Using Twitter for tasking remote-sensing data collection
and damage assessment: 2013 Boulder flood case study. Int. J. Remote Sens. 2016, 37, 100–124. [CrossRef]
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 28 of 29
152. Vetrivel, A.; Kerle, N.; Gerke, M.; Nex, F.; Vosselman, G. Towards automated satellite image segmentation and classification for
assessing disaster damage using data-specific features with incremental learning. In Proceedings of the GEOBIA 2016: Solutions
and Synergies, Twente, The Netherlands, 14–16 September 2016.
153. Li, W.; Jiang, R.; Xie, J.; Zhao, Y.; Zhu, J.; Yang, S. Emergency management decision of urban rainstorm and flood disasters based
on similar cases analysis. Nat. Hazard. 2022, 116, 753–768. [CrossRef]
154. Lin, T.-H.; Liaw, D.-C. Development of an intelligent disaster information-integrated platform for radiation monitoring. Nat.
Hazard. 2015, 76, 1711–1725. [CrossRef]
155. Abramson, D.M.; Grattan, L.M.; Mayer, B.; Colten, C.E.; Arosemena, F.A.; Bedimo-Rung, A.; Lichtveld, M. The resilience activation
framework: A conceptual model of how access to social resources promotes adaptation and rapid recovery in post-disaster
settings. J. Behav. Health Serv. Res. 2015, 42, 42–57. [CrossRef]
156. Liu, Z.; Yuan, C.; Sun, Z.; Cao, C. Digital Twins-Based Impact Response Prediction of Prestressed Steel Structure. Sensors 2022,
22, 1647. [CrossRef]
157. Wang, X.; Jiang, F.; Zhong, L.; Ji, Y.; Yamada, S.; Takano, K.; Xue, G. Intelligent post-disaster networking by exploiting crowd big
data. IEEE Netw. 2020, 34, 49–55. [CrossRef]
158. Vochin, M.; Vulpe, A.; Boicescu, L.; Obreja, S.G.; Suciu, G. An intelligent low-power displaying system with integrated emergency
alerting capability. Sensors 2019, 19, 666. [CrossRef]
159. Sacks, R.; Ma, L.; Yosef, R.; Borrmann, A.; Daum, S.; Kattel, U. Semantic enrichment for building information modeling: Procedure
for compiling inference rules and operators for complex geometry. J. Comput. Civ. Eng. 2017, 31, 04017062. [CrossRef]
160. Sacks, R.; Kedar, A.; Borrmann, A.; Ma, L.; Brilakis, I.; Hüthwohl, P.; Daum, S.; Kattel, U.; Yosef, R.; Liebich, T. See Bridge as
next generation bridge inspection: Overview, information delivery manual and model view definition. Autom. Constr. 2018, 90,
161. Ma, L.; Sacks, R.; Kattel, U.; Bloch, T. 3D object classification using geometric features and pairwise relationships. Comput. Aided
Civ. Infrastruct. Eng. 2018, 33, 152–164. [CrossRef]
162. Wang, Z.; Sacks, R.; Yeung, T. Exploring graph neural networks for semantic enrichment: Room type classification. Autom. Constr.
2022, 134, 104039. [CrossRef]
163. Yuan, L.; Yang, B.; Chi, Y.; Liu, Z.; Guo, L. Vehicle Emergency Route Planning Based on Grid Map. In Proceedings of the
International Conference on Spatial Data and Intelligence, Virtual, 8–9 May 2020; Springer: Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany, 2021;
pp. 122–135.
164. Chai, G.; Cao, J.; Huang, W.; Guo, J. Optimized traffic emergency resource scheduling using time varying rescue route travel time.
Neurocomputing 2018, 275, 1567–1575. [CrossRef]
165. Su, Z.; Wang, Y.; Xu, Q.; Zhang, N. LVBS: Lightweight vehicular blockchain for secure data sharing in disaster rescue. IEEE Trans.
Dependable Secur. Comput. 2020, 19, 19–32. [CrossRef]
166. Jiang, D. The construction of smart city information system based on the Internet of Things and cloud computing. Comput.
Commun. 2020, 150, 158–166. [CrossRef]
167. Li, L.; Ding, Y.; Yuan, J.; Ji, W.; Zhao, J.; Shen, L. Quantifying the Resilience of Emergency Response Networks to Infrastructure
Interruptions through an Enhanced Metanetwork-Based Framework. J. Manag. Eng. 2022, 38, 04022047. [CrossRef]
168. Gayathri, R.; Uma, V. Ontology based knowledge representation technique, domain modeling languages and planners for robotic
path planning: A survey. ICT Express 2018, 4, 69–74.
169. Raman, M. Claremont colleges emergency preparedness: An action research initiative. Syst. Pract. Action Res. 2006, 19, 253–271.
[CrossRef]
170. Lang, K.; Si, D.; Ma, Z. A Novel Method of Emergency Situation Evaluation for Deep-Sea Based on Bayesian Network. IEEE
Access 2020, 8, 215863–215873. [CrossRef]
171. Jung, H.; Chung, K. Ontology-driven slope modeling for disaster management service. Clust. Comput. 2015, 18, 677–692.
[CrossRef]
172. Wang, C.; Chen, Z.; Chen, N.; Wang, W. A hydrological sensor web ontology based on the SSN ontology: A case study for a flood.
ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2017, 7, 2. [CrossRef]
173. Mughal, M.H.; Shaikh, Z.A.; Wagan, A.I.; Khand, Z.H.; Hassan, S. Orffm: An ontology-based semantic model of river flow and
flood mitigation. IEEE Access 2021, 9, 44003–44031. [CrossRef]
174. Liu, X.; Liu, Z.; Liu, Y.; Tian, J. Integration of a geo-ontology-based knowledge model and spatial analysis into emergency
response for geologic hazards. Nat. Hazard. 2021, 108, 1489–1514. [CrossRef]
175. Coutinho-Rodrigues, J.; Simão, A.; Antunes, C.H. A GIS-based multicriteria spatial decision support system for planning urban
infrastructures. Decis. Support Syst. 2011, 51, 720–726. [CrossRef]
176. Mayunga, J.S.; Dantas, H.S.; Sousa, J.M.M.S.; Melo, H.C.; Wang, B.; Tian, Y.; Xu, Z.; Wu, Y.; Hao, X.; Yang, Y.; et al. Assessment of
public shelter users’ satisfaction: Lessons learned from south-central Texas flood. Nat. Hazard. Rev. 2012, 13, 82–87. [CrossRef]
177. Coutinho-Rodrigues, J.; Tralhão, L.; Alçada-Almeida, L. Solving a location-routing problem with a multiobjective approach: The
design of urban evacuation plans. J. Transp. Geogr. 2012, 22, 206–218. [CrossRef]
178. Xu, W.; Zhao, X.; Ma, Y.; Li, Y.; Qin, L.; Wang, Y.; Du, J. A multi-objective optimization based method for evaluating earthquake
shelter location–allocation. Geomat. Nat. Hazards Risk 2018, 9, 662–677. [CrossRef]
Buildings 2023, 13, 1143 29 of 29
179. Zhao, X.; Xu, W.; Ma, Y.; Qin, L.; Zhang, J.; Wang, Y. Relationships Between Evacuation Population Size, Earthquake Emergency
Shelter Capacity, and Evacuation Time. Int. J. Disaster Risk Sci. 2017, 8, 457–470. [CrossRef]
180. Wei, L.; Li, W.; Li, K.; Liu, H.; Cheng, L. Decision support for urban shelter locations based on covering model. Procedia Eng. 2012,
43, 59–64. [CrossRef]
181. Unal, M.; Uslu, C. GIS-based accessibility analysis of urban emergency shelters: The case of Adana city. Int. Arch. Photogramm.
Remote Sens. Spat. Inf. Sci. 2016, 42, 95–101. [CrossRef]
182. Rawls, C.G.; Turnquist, M.A. Pre-positioning of emergency supplies for disaster response. Transp. Res. Part B Methodol. 2010, 44,
183. Kang, K.; Chen, T.; Yuan, H. Cooperative scheduling model for multi-level emergency response teams. J. Tsinghua Univ. (Sci.
Technol.) 2016, 56, 830–835+843.
184. Chen, D.; Fang, X.; Li, Y.; Ni, S.; Zhang, Q.; Sang, C.K. Three-level multimodal transportation network for cross-regional
emergency resources dispatch under demand and route reliability. Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf. 2022, 222, 108461. [CrossRef]
185. Shao, Q. Dynamic Optimization of Emergency Water Resources Truck Logistics Stowage Based on Joint Distribution. J. Coast. Res.
2020, 104, 308–312. [CrossRef]
186. Zhang, Z.; Wang, Z.; Zhou, H. An Emergency Resource Allocation Method Based on Supernetwork for Urban Disaster. In
Proceedings of the International Conference on Applications and Techniques in Cyber Intelligence ATCI 2019: Applications and
Techniques in Cyber Intelligence 7, Huainan, China, 22–24 June 2019; Springer: Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany, 2020; pp. 248–255.
187. Sun, J.; Cao, H.; Geng, B.; Tang, Z.; Li, X. Demand prediction of railway emergency resources based on case-based reasoning.
J. Adv. Transp. 2021, 2021, 6666631. [CrossRef]
188. Yin, X.; Xu, X.; Chen, X. Risk mechanisms of large group emergency decision-making based on multi-agent simulation. Nat.
Hazard. 2020, 103, 1009–1034. [CrossRef]
189. Wang, D.; Wan, K.; Ma, W. Emergency decision-making model of environmental emergencies based on case-based reasoning
method. J. Environ. Manag. 2020, 262, 110382. [CrossRef]
190. Liu, Y. A multistage dynamic emergency decision-making method considering the satisfaction under uncertainty information.
J. Adv. Transp. 2021, 2021, 5535925. [CrossRef]
191. Sengan, S.; Subramaniyaswamy, V.; Nair, S.K.; Indragandhi, V.; Manikandan, J.; Ravi, L. Enhancing cyber–physical systems with
hybrid smart city cyber security architecture for secure public data-smart network. Future Gener. Comput. Syst. 2020, 112, 724–737.
[CrossRef]
192. Parn, E.A.; Edwards, D. Cyber threats confronting the digital built environment: Common data environment vulnerabilities and
block chain deterrence. Eng. Constr. Archit. Manag. 2019, 26, 245–266. [CrossRef]
193. Alhalafi, N.; Veeraraghavan, P. Cybersecurity policy framework in Saudi Arabia: Literature review. Front. Comput. Sci. 2021, 3, 89.
[CrossRef]
194. Pham, H.C.; Ulhaq, I.; Nguyen, M.; Nkhoma, M. An exploratory study of the effects of knowledge sharing methods on cyber
security practice. Australas. J. Inf. Syst. 2021, 25, 1–23. [CrossRef]
195. Shen, Z.; Issa, R.R. Quantitative evaluation of the BIM-assisted construction detailed cost estimates. J. Inf. Technol. Constr. 2010,
15, 234–257.
196. Sugiura, T.; Torii, A.; Okutomi, M. 3D surface reconstruction from point-and-line cloud. In Proceedings of the 2015 International
Conference on 3D Vision, Lyon, France, 19–22 October 2015; pp. 264–272.
197. Ariza-López, F.J.; Rodríguez-Avi, J.; Reinoso-Gordo, J.F.; Ariza-López, Í.A. Quality control of “as built” BIM datasets using the ISO
19157 framework and a multiple hypothesis testing method based on proportions. ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2019, 8, 569. [CrossRef]
198. Song, M.; Shen, Z.; Tang, P. Data quality-oriented 3D laser scan planning. In Proceedings of the Construction Research Congress
2014: Construction in a Global Network, Atlanta, GA, USA, 19–21 May 2014; pp. 984–993.
199. Qiu, Q.; Wang, M.; Tang, X.; Wang, Q. Scan planning for existing buildings without BIM based on user-defined data quality
requirements and genetic algorithm. Autom. Constr. 2021, 130, 103841. [CrossRef]
200. Huang, H.; Zhang, C.; Hammad, A. Effective scanning range estimation for using TLS in construction projects. J. Constr. Eng.
Manag. 2021, 147, 04021106. [CrossRef]
Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual
author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to
people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

Buildings 13 01143

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Buildings 13 01143

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

buildings

1 School of Economics and Management, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710064, China

Citation: Cheng, R.; Hou, L.; Xu, S. A

Buildings 2023, 13, 1143. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13051143 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/buildings

2.1. Data Collection

Records identified by databases

Records screened after removing

Records selected by specific criteria

Final articles used for systematic review

2.2. Statistical Analysis of Data

2.2. Statistical Analysis of Data

2.2.1. Time Distribution Feature Analysis

2.2.2. Productive Countries Analysis

Buildings 2023, 13, x FOR PEER REVIEW 6 of 30

Figure 4. Top-25 journal cocitation network.

Table 1. Top-25 high-impact journals, 2013–2023.

Rank Journal Title Cocitation Frequency Centrality

2.2.4. Document Citation Analysis

Table 2. Top-10 highly cited papers.

No. Document Name Authors Source Year Citations

No. Document Name Authors Source Year Citations

2.2.5. Keyword Co-Occurrence Analysis

3. Thematic Identification of DT in EMCI

3.1.1. Definition and Application of DT in Civil Infrastructure

3.1.1. Definition and Application of DT in Civil Infrastructure

Table 3. Definitions of DT in different industries.

References Research Field Typical Definitions of DT

3.1.3. DT System Architecture for EMCI

3.2. Critical Technologies Applied in DT

3.2.2. Computer Vision and Deep Learning

3.3. Resilience and EMCI

Table 4. Applicability of DT in EMCI.

Characteristics of EMCI Advantages of DT

4. DT Applications for EMCI

Buildings 2023, 13, 1143

The anomalous behaviour detection of infrastructure is the primary disaster mitigation

5. Trends and Prospects of DT for Civil Infrastructure Emergency Management

Visual Sensing of Scanning

Rule Sets Ontology Engine

Enriched BIM Model

5.2. Infrastructure Knowledge Management and Decision-Making

Because of the complex emergency management process and uncertainties, making

5.3. Quality and Secure Decision-Making

Standard Organisation published ISO 19157 to identify data-quality elements, including

6. Discussion and Future Research Direction

You might also like