Blockchain-enabled framework for cross-sector integration in smart cities facilitating risk assessment and interdependency analysis

Abstract

The Smart City (SC) paradigm has been proposed to address the problem of fast urbanization and the worldwide motivation toward the realization of a set of globally agreed-upon sustainable development goals. However, the actual implementation of SCs faces several significant challenges: (1) managing the complex structures of interdependency that arise from cross-sector integration is a major challenge; (2) ensuring that sensitive data shared within an SC are safe and private; and (3) the availability of real-time risk and interdependency analysis instead of traditional offline modeling and simulation methods against the propagation of run-time failures such as cascade and feedback effects. To the best of our knowledge, there is a lack of research that focuses on cyber cross-sector integration and its mentioned consequences. To fill these research gaps, we suggest a blockchain-based framework called SCADA-NET for integrating different sectors within SCs. This is an important part of making SCs reliable and sustainably long-lasting on the basis of well-known algorithms from the Complex Networks Theory (CNT). A preliminary prototype for SCADA-NET was developed, and the details of its design, implementation, performance evaluation, and future improvements are provided and discussed in this paper. A consortium blockchain allows people to share data in a safe and open way, and CNT models complicated CI networks. This study revealed that these two tools can work effectively together to make cross-sector integration into SCs easy and long-lasting. We also discuss future enhancements for SCADA-NET, including scalability and applicability in the context of urban metaverses.