Our News

Shanghai, China — September 2025

Professor Stergios-Aristoteles Mitoulis, Professor at University College London (UCL), The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, concluded his academic visit to Tongji University with a workshop on Building Systemic Resilience.

The workshop addressed critical aspects of resilience planning, including:

• Systemic and asset-specific resilience
• Costs of asset renovation and import dependencies
• Resource availability and compounding impacts

These discussions highlighted the importance of integrating economic and material considerations into resilience frameworks.

Professor Mitoulis expressed his appreciation to Professor Dongmei Zhang (Dean) and Professor Xiaowei Wang for their warm welcome and engaging discussions.

This workshop marked the conclusion of his activities in Shanghai before travelling to Torino, Italy, for the upcoming ARTISTE Conference on Infrastructure Resilience.

A new review article co-authored by Professor Stergios-Aristoteles Mitoulis (University College London, Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction), Francesco Pentassuglia, and Dr.Ivan Izonin, has been published in Results in Engineering (Elsevier).

The article, titled “Bridge damage characterisation using machine learning: methods and advances”, presents a state-of-the-art overview of global bridge damage detection and highlights how machine learning (ML) can transform structural health monitoring through deck deflection analysis.

Key highlights include:

• A comprehensive review of bridge damage characterisation methods worldwide.
• A scalable ML approach that reduces modelling effort and improves explainability.
• A physics-based framework linking deflection patterns to actionable damage states.

This collaborative work showcases how AI and engineering can converge to enhance the resilience and reliability of bridge infrastructure.

Read the article: ScienceDirect link

Professor Stergios-Aristoteles Mitoulis, Professor at University College London (UCL), The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, visited the College of Architecture and Urban Planning (CAUP) at Tongji University for an exchange on resilient and sustainable urban environments.

During the visit, Professor Mitoulis met with Professor Xing Shi and Professor Ariel Peixian Li, along with their colleagues and students, to explore innovative approaches to transforming built environments through sustainability and resilience.

He expressed appreciation for the warm welcome and stimulating discussions, noting his interest in building future collaborations between Tongji University and UCL’s Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction.

This visit reflects his continuing efforts to advance international collaboration at the intersection of resilience, sustainability, and urban planning, aligned with the mission of MetaInfrastructure.

Shanghai, China — September 2025

Professor Stergios-Aristoteles Mitoulis, Professor at University College London (UCL), The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, delivered an invited lecture at Tongji University, Department of Geotechnical Engineering.

The lecture, titled “Sustained Resilience: Framing the Integration of Resilience and Sustainability in the Built Environment”, introduced the concept of sustained resilience as a lifecycle-oriented framework that bridges short-term resilience with long-term sustainability.

Professor Mitoulis delivered seven pathways — from deterioration and breakdown to proactive advancement and regulatory uplift — showing how cities and infrastructure can not only withstand disruptions but also learn, adapt, and evolve.

He expressed his gratitude to Professor Zhongkai Huang for the kind invitation and inspiring discussions, and to colleagues and students for their enthusiastic engagement and insightful questions.

This lecture reflects Professor Mitoulis’s ongoing contributions to advancing knowledge at the intersection of resilience, sustainability, and infrastructure digitalisation, aligned with the mission of MetaInfrastructure.

Beijing, China — September 2025

Prof. Stergios-Aristoteles Mitoulis, Associate Professor at University College London (UCL), The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, was invited to deliver a distinguished lecture at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Beijing.

The lecture, titled “Wildland Urban Interface and Critical Infrastructure: A Missing Link in Wildfires Resilience”, addressed the vulnerabilities of the Wildland–Urban Interface (WUI) and presented a framework for strengthening infrastructure resilience across the wildfire cycle — before, during, and after events. Prof. Mitoulis highlighted the use of fragility curves and digital tools to inform future-ready standards in wildfire resilience.

He expressed gratitude to Professor Jianghao Wang for the invitation and warm hospitality, as well as to colleagues and students for their stimulating discussions and exchange of ideas.

Prof. Mitoulis emphasized the importance of international collaboration, noting that the engagement with the vibrant Chinese research community will pave the way for further joint work on resilience, sustainability, and the digitalisation of critical infrastructure systems.

Acknowledgements were extended to Dr. Yiming Xiang, Dr. Sotirios Argyroudis, and Dr. Stavros Sakellariou, alongside the ongoing support of the MetaInfrastructure initiative.

Our paper “Digital technologies can enhance climate resilience of critical infrastructure” has been recognised by Elsevier as:

✅ The #1 most cited paper in Climate Risk Management since January 2022

✅ Among the most downloaded articles in the journal

✅ Ranked #9 most cited paper of all time in the journal

✅ Now with 300+ citations on Google Scholar

-indicators of its impact.

This milestone underscores the urgent need for digital innovation in addressing climate risks to infrastructure, and the value of evidence-based insights in shaping resilient futures-core to our www.metainfrastructure.org group vision.

Huge thanks to co-authors and the broader research and practitioner community for engaging with our work. The paper is openly available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212096321001169

In our new paper “Climate-resilient railway networks: a resource-aware framework”, published in Communications Engineering (Nature Portfolio), we propose a probabilistic framework to assess how coastal hazards and sea-level rise impact railway networks—and how resource allocation strategies influence recovery and resilience.

Authored by Anibal Tafur, Sotirios Argyroudis, Stergios Aristoteles Mitoulis, and Jamie Padgett from Rice University.

The full paper is openly available: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44172-025-00493-4

MetaInfrastructure is pleased to highlight a new open-access article published in Sustainable Development:

“Enhancing Sustainability and Resilience Against Natural Hazards of the Built Environment — State of the Art and Development of a Novel Framework.”

The paper introduces a transparent, practical two-step framework that unifies sustainability and resilience assessment across the full life cycle of buildings and infrastructure. It:

• incorporates social impacts alongside environmental and economic dimensions,
• accounts for performance evolution over time, not just a single snapshot,
• and supports proactive, risk-aware decision-making for policymakers, engineers, and asset managers.

As climate change intensifies natural hazards, the framework offers a structured path to reduce risk while advancing long-term sustainability goals.

Access: Read the article on Wiley (open access): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sd.70150