Modeling and Analysis of Urban Critical Infrastructure Dynamic Cascading Failures in Urban Floods Based on Simulink

Extreme urban flooding poses a significant threat to cities, triggering complex cascading failures across critical infrastructure systems (CISs). This study develops a modular modeling framework using MATLAB Simulink to simulate the interconnected dynamics of electricity, water supply, and telecommunication systems based on their functional interdependencies. The cascading simulation was driven by inundation data derived from an InfoWorks ICM model of central Guangzhou, considering a combined 500-year rainfall and tidal level scenario. The spatiotemporal propagation of disaster impacts through the CISs was examined, with particular emphasis on facility-level anomaly triggers and the evolution of failure chains. The system performance for electricity, water, and telecommunications plummeted from 63.1%, 63.2%, and 21.8% at the rainfall’s end to 33.6%, 3.2%, and 2.7% two days later due to sustained cascading effects. A significant spatial mismatch between direct flood inundation zones and areas suffering from service outages was identified, highlighting the necessity of looking beyond the flood footprint in emergency management. This research provides a scalable framework for quantifying infrastructure resilience and supporting cross-sector disaster mitigation strategies.