PANTHEON: Advancing Disaster Management Through Smart City Digital Twins
As climate change intensifies the frequency and complexity of natural and man-made hazards, disaster risk management systems must evolve. The PANTHEON project responds to this need by integrating Smart City Digital Twins (SCDTs) simulations, UAV technologies, andmulti-source data into a single decision-support platform. In this blog post, we’ll dive deeper into the technologies and methodology of designing four detailed disaster scenarios grounded in user needs from Greece and Austria. The result is a platform that offers scalable, adaptable, and ethically aligned tools for modern crisis preparedness and response.
Grounded in Real Needs: A Participatory Design Approach
PANTHEON’s foundation lies in a participatory design methodology. Through stakeholder workshops and iterative feedback loops, the team worked with emergency responders and civil protection agencies in Attica (Greece) and Vienna (Austria). These sessions identified local hazard priorities, system expectations, and data constraints. This process ensured the platform’s relevance, usability, and legal/ethical compliance.
The methodology followed a three-phase cycle:
- ✓ Requirements Elicitation: Captured domain-specific hazards and user workflows.
- ✓ Scenario and System Co-Design: Translated needs into simulation parameters and interface requirements.
- ✓ Pilot Preparation: Aligned user requirements with high-level architecture and interface design in anticipation of testing.
Scenario 1: Wildfire in Attica
Wildfires in Attica are frequent and devastating. PANTHEON models wildfire propagation usingterrain, vegetation, and weather data, integrating UAV swarms for aerial monitoring. The SCDT simulates fire spread and visualises cascading effects (e.g., road blockages and evacuation bottlenecks). Users can simulate resource allocation scenarios, e.g., how drone- assisted surveillance changes containment strategies.
Impact: Strengthens operational readiness and inter-agency coordination.
Scenario 2: Earthquake in Attica
Focusing on planning and resilience, this scenario simulates seismic events and infrastructure impacts. It includes building impact models, aftershock forecasting, and emergency route viability. The system enables testing user response and coordination under pressure.
Impact: Supports planning, response, and predictive analytics to reduce delays and casualties.
Scenario 3: Heatwave in Vienna
This scenario models prolonged heatwaves and their effects on health systems, especially for vulnerable populations. Using IoT environmental sensors and population data, PANTHEON forecasts the burden on emergency services. Simulations include ambulance routing delaysand hospital triage overflow.
Impact: Enables urban planners and health agencies to model early warning triggers, resource pre-positioning, and plan mitigation strategies.
Scenario 4: Cyber-Terrorism in Vienna
A novel inclusion, this scenario simulates coordinated cyberattacks on Vienna’s critical infrastructure—e.g., energy, water, and traffic control. It focuses on cascading physical effects caused by virtual attacks. The SCDT visualises secondary impacts, such as communications failures or public safety incidents due to traffic light manipulation or data loss.
Impact: Enhances training for integrated cyber-physical response across first responder teams.
Technology Stack: Drones, Digital Twins, and Dynamic Data
All scenarios are underpinned by a tightly integrated stack:
- ✓ Smart City Digital Twins for real-time, spatially-aware simulations.
- ✓ UAV swarmsfor dynamic data capture and aerial assessments.
- ✓ Weather and IoT sensors, satellite feeds, and urban infrastructure data streams.
- ✓ User-driven UI/UX design ensuring non-technical stakeholders can simulate, observe, and act within the digital twin.
Each simulation is configurable, enabling scenario creation, adaptive timelines, and stakeholder-specific views. The system includes privacy-preserving data governance aligned with GDPR and integrates community organisations into the visual and operational layers of the SCDT.
What’s Next: From Scenario to Pilot
With scenario design complete, the next phase involves full-scale pilots in both regions. Evaluation will follow a cyclical model:
- ✓ Scenario testing with real users.
- ✓ Feedback collection and functional refinement.
- ✓ Architecture alignment to integrate new requirements into system design.
Conclusion
PANTHEON provides a modular, user-centred, and technologically advanced approach to disaster risk management. It replaces fragmented response systems with a unified platform that simulates real-time crises, enables preparedness, and guides coordinated action. Through the tight integration of digital twins, UAVs, and human-centred design, PANTHEON sets a new standard for managing disasters in complex urban environments.
