Illustrative: a truss under a moving load with members coloured by stress, a lattice tower swaying, or a geodesic dome
Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium · Infrastructure, Energy and Industry
Department of Utility Networks
Utilities are networks before they are assets: a treatment works, a pumping station, a mobile mast and a cable landing each matter for what depends on them downstream.
How its disciplines connect
The map
DepartmentDisciplineNexus Standard taught here
Disciplines of the department
A filled mark is one open course in the discipline.
- Water and wastewater systemsCourses in developmentThe discipline covers drinking water supply, distribution networks, wastewater collection and treatment as engineered infrastructure.
- Telecommunications and digital infrastructureCourses in developmentThe discipline covers the physical networks of the digital economy: access and mobile networks, backbones, subsea cables.
Build a twin of any place
Search any place or open the world; the layers and generators follow department of Utility Networks on the planet map, the globe and in 3D.
Infrastructure, Energy and IndustryAny placeTwin builder
- Terrain 0 to 523 m
- 83,815 buildings in the box
- 5,085 footprints in the core, 2,796 with an estimated height
- Roads 176 km
- Rail 99 km
- 57 substations
- 4 port
- 2 airport
- 5 hospitals
- 8 railway stations
- 4 water works
- 2 power plants, 202 MW
Drag to move, right drag or Shift with a drag to turn and tilt, Ctrl with the wheel to zoom. Keyboard: arrows move, Shift with arrows turn and tilt, + and – zoom, 0 resets, V steps through the views, Escape clears.
Places5
Layers5
iCredits
- Terrain Surface height in whole metres on a grid of about a hundred and twenty metres, read from one overview of the 30 m product at build time. Produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-30 © DLR e.V. 2010–2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014–2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved. read 2026-10-17. Estimate: A surface model: trees and roofs are in the heights. Relief is exaggerated for legibility and the factor is printed on the stage.
- Buildings Footprints of the central city extruded to their tagged height, and a count of buildings per 150 m cell over the rest of the box. © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. data as of 2026-10-17. Estimate: Where a building has no height or levels tag its height is an estimate by use, flagged in the data and shown in a lighter tone.
- Roads and rail Motorways, trunk, primary and secondary roads and the railway lines, with their length in kilometres. © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. data as of 2026-07-15.
- Lifeline assets Substations with their tagged voltage, port land, the airport, hospitals, railway stations and water works, each as one point. © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0. data as of 2026-05-31.
- Power plants Every plant inside the box, with capacity in MW and primary fuel, from the 2021 release. Power plants: Global Power Plant Database v1.3.0 (2021), World Resources Institute and partners, CC BY 4.0. release 1.3.0, 2021-06-02. Estimate: A 2021 snapshot, never current operating status.
Why this place: Wellington's regional lifelines programme, which began with a published 1991 case study of its lifelines in earthquakes, is a reference case for lifelines engineering, so the twin teaches on the place where the practice was named. One box of about twenty by eighteen kilometres holds a dense harbour city on steep terrain, its port and airport, the rail terminus and the Hutt corridor, the substations that feed the city and two wind farms in the western hills, so every lifeline family is present and legible at one scale. Data quality: OpenStreetMap building and road coverage of New Zealand is complete, Copernicus DEM GLO-30 covers the terrain at thirty metres, and the Global Power Plant Database lists the plants.
Flat plan of the same data. The 3D twin opens on devices that can draw it, once its data and code have been checked; the numbers are the same either way.
The boundaries, names and designations shown do not imply any judgement on the legal status of any territory, or any endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Countries: Natural Earth (public domain).
Hazards and exposure in Türkiye
Flood water, active fires and surface heat beside population and night-time lights, over Türkiye.
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Layers 3
Hazards and exposure
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Latest available
NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.
Hazards and exposure, framed on Türkiye.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.
Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · NASA EONET · U.S. Geological SurveySources and licences
- We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), VIIRS 375 m active fire product, NASA LANCE; vector tiles via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University. 2018. Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11. NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). doi:10.7927/H49C6VHW. CC BY 4.0
- VIIRS Black Marble night-time lights, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; distributed by the NASA Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- MODIS and VIIRS atmosphere products, NASA LANCE and LAADS DAAC; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
- Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
- © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). ODbL
- Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
- Globe: MapLibre GL JS 6.9.1, BSD-3-Clause, © MapLibre contributors.
- Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
- Live: NASA EONET Events are indicative, not authority warnings.
- Live: U.S. Geological Survey Events are indicative, not authority warnings.
- NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
- River discharge forecast, 30 days with range (GloFAS via Open-Meteo): Contains modified Copernicus Emergency Management Service information 2026; not a flood warning.
- Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (https://open-meteo.com/), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
- Optional layers (10 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.
Layers and dates
- Flood water, 3-day composite: VIIRS Global Flood Product, NASA LANCE · 14 Oct 2026
- Active fires and thermal anomalies: VIIRS NOAA-20 375 m (FIRMS), NASA LANCE FIRMS · 13 Oct 2026
- Population density, 2020: Population: CIESIN, Columbia University, Gridded Population of the World v4.11 (2018), NASA SEDAC, CC BY 4.0 · static
- Land surface temperature, day, 8-day composite: VIIRS NOAA-20 Level 3, 8-day, NASA LANCE · 14 Sep 2026
- Night-time lights, daily: VIIRS Black Marble (VNP46A2), NASA LAADS DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
- Aerosol optical depth, daily: VIIRS NOAA-20 Deep Blue AOD, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
How the Utility Networks department teaches, as a process you can run
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Hub, courses, pathways and across the ecosystem
Research and tools
Research and preprints as they are published, by discipline, with the faculty's other tools.
The hub lists the newest research and preprints for 2 disciplines, each with its source and date. Open the research hub
Water and wastewater systems, Telecommunications and digital infrastructure
Courses of the department
Courses for this department are in development; until they open, study it through the open lessons on its discipline pages.
Pathways that run through it
Pathways through this department are in development; its courses are listed in the catalogue.
Across the ecosystem
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Questions, answers and key terms
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Key terms
Water and wastewater systems
This area covers drinking water supply, distribution networks, wastewater collection and treatment as engineered infrastructure: their hydraulics, asset condition, dependencies on power and chemicals, and the hazards that disrupt them.
Telecommunications and digital infrastructure
This area covers the physical networks of the digital economy: access and mobile networks, backbones, subsea cables, internet exchange points and data centres, and their dependence on power, timing and repair capacity.
Contribute evidence from this page.
Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.
Around the Department of Utility Networks
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Each discipline page sets out its scope, courses, labs, technology and key terms.