Extreme weather events not only disrupt daily life but inflict heavy economic costs. Prof. Yi-Qing Ni, Chair Professor of Smart Structures and Rail Transit of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the National Rail Transit Electrification and Automation Engineering Technology Research Centre (Hong Kong Branch), leads a project aimed at mitigating the risk of tropical storms for high-rise building clusters in coastal cities through the development of a real-time early-warning and resilience system. His project “INTACT: Intelligent Tropical-storm-resilient System for Coastal Cities” has received funding of approximately HK$50 million from the Research Grants Council’s Theme-based Research Scheme 2023/24.

In a recent interview with Wen Wei Po, Prof. Ni explained that the project would devise a framework that can effectively and accurately assess turbulence and quantify the risks arising from complex urban aerodynamics using sparse measurements, while also quantitatively evaluating a city’s resilience. This could systematically anticipate the potential risks and consequences of windstorms on critical buildings and enable effective implementation of precautionary measures.

Full interview: https://polyu.me/48nVpyg