Abstract
The transition from traditional cities to smart cities is not only reflected in the optimisation and upgrading of urban infrastructure public services but also in the expansion and intensification of new disaster risks. This study first reviewed the related work on disaster risks of smart cities and thereby constructed an indicator framework of new disaster risk influencing factors for smart cities. Then, a fuzzy DANP-ISM method was developed to analyse the interactions and prioritise these factors. The results revealed the critical factors of new disaster risks in smart cities, including online mass incidents, cyberterrorism, technology ethics, information infrastructure, physical infrastructure, information overcollection, cyber-attacks and information leakage. Among them, information infrastructure and physical infrastructure were the primary influencing factors, with the other factors being influenced by them. Furthermore, major challenges of new disaster risk management in smart cities are discussed in this paper, and corresponding strategies are provided. This study not only enriches the risk studies of smart cities but also provides important theoretical and methodological references for emergency management of smart cities.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by Projects of Humanities and Social Sciences under the Ministry of Education (Grant No. 25YJC630140), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2025SK21), Research Projects in Philosophy and Social Sciences of Jiangsu Provincial Colleges and Universities (Grant No. 2025SJYB0780), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52304195), and Jiangsu Province Social Science Application Research Excellent Engineering Project (Grant No. 25SYB-038).
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Yanqing Wang: conceptualization, designing the methodology, organizing, writing, and revising; Xiao Gu: revising and editing; Shanshan Li: revising and editing; All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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Wang, Y., Gu, X. & Li, S. Toward smart cities: analysis of critical factors of new disaster risks in smart cities using a fuzzy DANP-ISM method. Humanit Soc Sci Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-06555-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-06555-y
