Modeling and analysis of urban critical infrastructure dynamic cascading failures in urban floods based on Simulink

Cities are severely impacted by urban extreme flood disasters, which can trigger cascading failures across critical infrastructure systems (CISs) like electricity, water, and telecommunications. This study models urban infrastructure dynamic cascading failures using MATLAB Simulink, with Guangzhou's central area as a case study. The local electricity, water supply, and telecommunication systems were modeled as interconnected modules based on functional supply-demand relationships. A 500-year rainfall event combined with a 500-year tidal level was simulated using InfoWorks ICM to drive the cascading model. The disaster was analyzed from four perspectives: system performance, facility anomaly causes, failure chain evolution, and spatiotemporal impacts on communities. System performances for electricity, water, and wireless communication were 63.1 %, 63.2 %, and 21.8 % of normal levels at the end of the rain, dropping to 33.6 %, 3.2 %, and 2.7 % respectively two days later. The spatial inconsistency between flood inundation and the effects of CISs service reduction was discovered, providing a novel perspective for urban flood emergency management. This scalable CIS cascading failure model can serve as a valuable reference framework for other locations.