The document discusses creating ubiquitous sustainable cities through anticipating societal drivers like health, wealth, and population dynamics over long time horizons. It addresses challenges like complexity, uncertainty, multiple scales, and human factors. The proposed approach uses sensing, communication, modeling, and decision tools to enable data-driven prediction of coupled infrastructure systems accounting for human dynamics. This would allow engineering policies and decisions with managed consequences through information immersion and predictive models.

1. Ubiquitous Sustainable Cities
Roger Ghanem1
1 University
of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA, USA
October 6th 2009
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2. Outline
Essential Contributions from many colleagues at USC, CSULB,
Columbia, ASU, Princeton, and RAND.
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3. Ghanem (USC) Ubiquitous Sustainable Cities SoCal Smart Grid Symp 3 / 16

4. Essential Premise
Actions we take today will shape the reality of tomorrow:
strong coupling between several complex systems
Accurate anticipation is conducive to effective decisions.
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5. Essential Premise
Actions we take today will shape the reality of tomorrow:
strong coupling between several complex systems
Accurate anticipation is conducive to effective decisions.
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6. Societal Drivers
S USTAINABILITY BY D ESIGN :
Anticipate Health
Air quality
Water supply and quality
Climate change
Anticipate Wealth
Local and global economic growth
Conditions of civil infrastructures
Population dynamics
Over long time horizons (30 years - 100 years).
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7. Societal Drivers
S USTAINABILITY BY D ESIGN :
Anticipate Health
Air quality
Water supply and quality
Climate change
Anticipate Wealth
Local and global economic growth
Conditions of civil infrastructures
Population dynamics
Over long time horizons (30 years - 100 years).
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8. Challenges
Complexity, Uncertainty, Mutiple scales, Humans-in-the-loop
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9. Challenges
Complexity, Uncertainty, Mutiple scales, Humans-in-the-loop
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10. Challenges
Complexity, Uncertainty, Mutiple scales, Humans-in-the-loop
Quantities of interest are observed on a multitutde of scales.
Strong coupling between well-understood physical processes and
highly speculative processes underlying human and social
dynamics.
Significant uncertainty exists in all components of the problem.
Coupling between human and physical processes is at a coarsest
scale (media-bites).
Stakeholders are not of voting age.
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11. Some Hope
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12. Some Hope
S UMMARY FROM A DOE W ORKSHOP :
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13. Integrated Solution
S ENSING /C OMMUNICATING /M ODELING /D ECISION
INFERRED
INFERRED ANTICIPATED
ANTICIPATED
LANDSCAPES
LANDSCAPES LANDSCAPES
LANDSCAPES
Population Density Anticipation Population Density
Behavior of Agents in ABM w/ Climate Behavior of Agents in ABM
Economic Activity Economic Activity
Ground Motion
Change Ground Motion
Condition of Lifelines Condition of Lifelines
POLICY G
IN
UP AL
SC NS
C
InfoGrid Testbeds
InfoGrid AL
IN
G DO
W
TRANSPORTATION
MODELING ANTICIPATED STATE IN
STATE OF URBANUS: OF URBANUS LOS ANGELES
(current snapshot + archive) seismograms/
FLOODING IN
mech. sensors NEW YORK CITY
seismograms/ seismograms
mech. sensors traffic EARTHQUAKE IN
traffic LOS ANGELES
power use
power use
water use POWER DEMAND
water use PREDICTION
GPS
GPS
PRESENT (or typical update time) FUTURE
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14. Vision
Use information technology and modeling to enable the
engineering of policies and decisions with managed
consequences.
Enable data-driven prediction science for complex coupled
infrastructure systems accounting for human dynamics.
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15. Approach and Methodology
Create information immersion through a hierarchy of area
networks .
Develop requisite IT infrastructure.
Develop validated models of population dynamics and model
response of humans to policies and environmental drivers.
Develop models for coupling humans and infrastructure systems.
Fold predictive models into decision-making environments.
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16. Integrated Solution
S ENSING /C OMMUNICATING /M ODELING /D ECISION
INFERRED
INFERRED ANTICIPATED
ANTICIPATED
LANDSCAPES
LANDSCAPES LANDSCAPES
LANDSCAPES
Population Density Anticipation Population Density
Behavior of Agents in ABM w/ Climate Behavior of Agents in ABM
Economic Activity Economic Activity
Ground Motion
Change Ground Motion
Condition of Lifelines Condition of Lifelines
POLICY G
IN
UP AL
SC NS
C
InfoGrid Testbeds
InfoGrid AL
IN
G DO
W
TRANSPORTATION
MODELING ANTICIPATED STATE IN
STATE OF URBANUS: OF URBANUS LOS ANGELES
(current snapshot + archive) seismograms/
FLOODING IN
mech. sensors NEW YORK CITY
seismograms/ seismograms
mech. sensors traffic EARTHQUAKE IN
traffic LOS ANGELES
power use
power use
water use POWER DEMAND
water use PREDICTION
GPS
GPS
PRESENT (or typical update time) FUTURE
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17. Nuts and Bolts
O N M ANY L EVELS
Transportation Flooding in
System in New York City
Los Angeles Systems Barriers Stakeholders:
1. Analysis of coupled Requirements Decision Makers
Power system Citizens
Earthquake 2. Feedback to
in Los Angeles Demand Fundamental Research Private Sector
Prediction 3. Metrics for System Products
Performance & Outcomes
Testbed Testbed Industry
Partners and
Systems Research Technology Integration Innovation
Systems Research
Partners
Technology Elements
MYRIAD Modeling Enabling Tech Barriers
Systems & UD-Platform 1. Heterogeneous Data
Interactions 2. Knowledge Extraction
3. Sensor-Model Interface
Testbed 4. Uncertainty in Predictions
Testbed
System Requirements
Testbed
System Requirements
Enabling Technology Research Technology Base
Fundamental Insights
Info. Science Validation & Fundamental Barriers
w/ Massive Data & Networks Updating Under Complexity 1. Massive Heterogeneous
Networks
Stability & Control of Algorithms for 2. Massive Heterogeneous
Heterogenous Dynamical Sys. Data
Real-time Inference/Decision 3. Complex Interactions
4. Long prediction horizon
Decision Making Quantitative 5. Uncertainties
Under Complexity Human Interactions 6. Complexity of Humans
Fundamental Research Knowledge Base
Info Systems Models Policies
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18. Closing
science has advanced to the point where we can build materials
one atom at a time.
humans are arguably more comple than atoms.
information immersion seems like a reasonable way forward.
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