Prepare for, respond to, and recover from crises by working together.
Networked resilience is the capacity of cities to strengthen preparedness, response, recovery and adaptation by leveraging their existing interconnections (e.g. transport network and, supply chain) or coordinated mutual support to mobilises complementary capabilities across places and over time. Rather than treating each city as an isolated system, networked resilience recognises that cities are connected through transport, infrastructure, economies, institutions and the movement of people, knowledge and resources. These connections can expose cities to cascading disruption, but they can also become an important source of support.
Why does it matter?
Climate change is increasing the frequency, intensity and reach of extreme events, including floods, wildfires, heatwaves, coastal hazards and water scarcity. A major crisis can stretch local services, disrupt essential systems and exceed the response capacity of an individual city.
Preparing for every possible crisis independently may be neither realistic nor the best use of limited resources. Cities have different risk profiles, experiences and capabilities. While one city is overwhelmed, another may be able to provide specialist personnel, equipment, technical knowledge, data, logistical assistance or temporary service capacity.
The aim is not to reduce local preparedness. It is to explore how cities can become better prepared collectively, complementing their own capabilities with reliable support from a wider network.
For this to work, cooperation needs to be developed before a crisis occurs. Cities need to understand what they can offer and what they might need, build trusted relationships, and establish practical arrangements for requesting, coordinating and delivering assistance.
Developing the idea
The concept of networked resilience was introduced by Distinguished Professor Xuemei Bai in the 2024 Science article “Build networked resilience across cities.”
The article argues that resilience strategies must move beyond a focus on individual cities. In an interconnected and increasingly crisis-prone world, cities and their surrounding regions need to proactively develop partnerships that allow them to act together when shocks occur.
Networked resilience is also part of a broader way of understanding cities as transformative agents. Cities can do more than improve their own sustainability and resilience: they can support other cities and create new systems based on cooperation, collective action and shared learning.
Building the Evidence
Recent research provides empirical evidence that connections between cities can strengthen resilience. A 2026 study by Haiyan Liu and Xuemei Bai examined mobility data from 1.1 billion devices across 366 Chinese cities. It found that cities with stronger connections to other cities generally recovered more quickly and experienced lower mobility disruption following extreme rainfall.
The benefits were especially significant for smaller and less affluent cities. The research also found that strategic railway development could strengthen intercity connectivity and improve future resilience.
The findings demonstrate why urban resilience needs to be considered not only within individual city boundaries, but also across the wider networks in which cities operate.
From Research
to Practice
Networked resilience has already started to inform city initiatives. The Next Horizon Sustainable City initiative was launched by the City of Kitakyushu and Distinguished Professor Xuemei Bai. The initiative brings together ideas including networked resilience, altruistic cities and cities as transformative agents. It demonstrates how cities can look beyond their own boundaries, share their knowledge and help bring other cities along their sustainability journeys.
Current focus:
co-designing networked resilience with cities
Our current work is examining how networked resilience could operate in practice and what would be required for cities to rely on one another during real crises.
Through the emerging collaboration with Urban Transition Mission (UTM) and GCOM’s Innovate4Cities, we are co-designing networked resilience with cities. By working with city representatives, we explore:
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What happens when a crisis exceeds a city’s capacity and nearby jurisdictions are also affected?
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What capabilities could different cities offer one another?
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What support might each city need?
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Which types of connections are most valuable under different crisis scenarios?
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What could prevent mutual support from working?
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What relationships, agreements and governance arrangements need to be established in advance?
Scenario-based workshops will explore flooding, coastal hazards, wildfire, extreme heat, drought and water scarcity. They will help identify opportunities, practical barriers and the conditions needed for establishing networked resilience on the ground.
What comes next?
Our ongoing and future work will move from developing the concept and evidence towards testing practical models of cooperation.
We will work with cities and partner organisations to:
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Map different cities’ risks, needs and complementary capabilities
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Test mutual-support arrangements through realistic crisis scenarios
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Identify institutional, financial, legal and logistical barriers
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Explore the roles of physical, social, institutional and digital connections
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Develop principles and practical recommendations for city-to-city cooperation
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Examine how collective preparedness can complement, and potentially make better use of local adaptation and emergency-management resources
Ultimately, the work asks a simple but important question:
How can cities become more resilient, not only individually, but together?
Get involved
We welcome interest from cities, urban networks, researchers and organisations interested in helping develop and test networked approaches to climate resilience.
Building on the concept of networked resilience developed by Distinguished Professor Xuemei Bai, the current research, workshop and city co-design activities are led by Dr Sombol Mokhles, ARC Laureate Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
For research enquiries, potential collaborations or further discussion about networked resilience, please contact Dr Sombol Mokhles at sombol.mokhles@anu.edu.com.
For workshop registration or general project enquiries, please contact Dr Eri Kashima at eri.kashima@anu.edu.au, Project Officer, or register your interest through the link below.