Digital-twin-based multi-scale simulation supports urban emergency management: a case study of urban epidemic transmission

Improving emergency management capabilities is vital for sustainable cities. However, urban emergency management is a complex, giant system that interacts between urban virtual and real spaces, requiring simulation in the virtual space and feedback to the real space. The digital twin model can potentially play an important role in this process, but still faces significant challenges in terms of modeling, simulation, and visualization. In this study, we propose a digital-twin-based multi-scale simulation method and take epidemic transmission as a case study. First, an entity-oriented unified urban database integrating multi-source urban data was constructed as the digital twins of urban human settlements for emergency modeling. Then, a multi-scale urban emergency simulation method in 3D geographic environment was proposed to support emergency simulation for multi-level urban management units. Moreover, an adaptive fusion rendering of emergency information and 3D scene was proposed to support the refinement of emergency visualization. An experimental case study on epidemic risk estimation was conducted through thousands of outbreak scenarios. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can establish the digital twins of urban human settlements, where modeling, simulation, and visualization of emergency at multi-scales can be carried out, thus enhancing the efficacy and efficiency of emergency management.