Semantic framework for interdependent infrastructure resilience decision support

The increasing need for interdependent infrastructure systems to withstand natural disasters has called for the co-creation of resilience decisions to minimize the impact on society. However, issues related to information integration across different infrastructure systems hamper decision making from a system-to-systems perspective. To resolve this problem, the Semantic Web technologies are presented in this paper to serve four functions: (i) linking cross domains through ontology development to represent different domain knowledge; (ii) integrating multiple-source heterogeneous data by a common data format; (iii) retrieving useful information using semantic query language; and (iv) deriving machine automatic logical reasoning by rule languages and logic engines to provide informed resilience decision making support. The proposed framework is tested by a case scenario involving intertwined drainage-transport-building systems under the influence of urban flooding. The result indicates that the framework effectively facilitates information integration between diverse infrastructure systems and helps decision-makers by providing resilience decision-making support. •Proposed an application paradigm of Semantic Web technologies for interdependent infrastructure resilience decisions.•Developed relevant ontologies to link up cross domain knowledge involved in infrastructure resilience decisions.•.Developed RDF converters and created a data sharing environment for heterogenous resilience-related data.•Proposed a query strategy to help diverse stakeholders acquire various information from other infrastructure systems.•Derived machine automatic logical reasoning for interdependency identification in intertwined infrastructure networks.