Quantitative Key Performance Indicators for risk and resilience assessment of the built environment assets under climatic and non-climatic hazards

Abstract

Assessing risk and resilience in the built environment requires a comprehensive understanding of the dynamic interactions between physical spaces and their users across multiple scales. The study aims to develop a framework to support such assessments by identifying and structuring quantitative Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for evaluating risk and resilience in the built environment. The study combines expert engagement and desk review to identify key factors influencing risk and resilience. It considers a wide range of hazards—both climate-related (e.g., floods, droughts, heat waves) and non-climate-related (e.g., earthquakes)—and examines their impacts on people, buildings, infrastructure, cultural heritage, and urban and territorial systems. Grounded in international guidelines and validated by experts, the proposed set of KPIs enables systematic assessment across scales, user groups, and systems. The KPIs cover risk components such as hazard, exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, as well as resilience qualities including robustness, rapidity, resourcefulness, and redundancy. Furthermore, the framework incorporates multiple resilience dimensions—environmental, economic, physical, digital, organisational, and human health and well-being—addressing critical gaps in existing assessment tools. By measuring both vulnerability characteristics and resilience qualities of built environment assets, the framework provides actionable insights to inform policies, planning strategies, and project design. This study contributes to advancing integrated and evidence-based approaches for disaster risk reduction and climate resilience, offering a tool to support decision-makers, designers, and practitioners in evaluating current conditions and shaping future development or regeneration pathways.