Abstract for: Modeling Community Resilience to Power Outages Using Participatory System Dynamics

Rising long-duration power outages in the U.S., driven by extreme weather and operational issues, severely impact public health and interdependent infrastructure. Current resilience research is focused on outage predictions and static social vulnerability indices. This work addresses this gap by integrating dynamic community processes and behaviors into a system dynamics model to determine the dynamics of community resilience. We have hot, arid region of Southern Nevada as our case study. We are developing a system dynamics model based on established resilience frameworks and participatory research. This includes surveys, in-depth interviews, and participatory modeling workshops to improve our model through iteration and identify high-leverage intervention points for decision-makers. Our work provides a holistic view of community resilience, moving beyond infrastructure-centric models. We focus on social dynamics in Southern Nevada, offering practitioners a tool to test non-technical interventions, such as strengthening communication and community networks. Although focused on the western U.S., this framework is transferable for integrating community behavior and dynamics into broader resilience planning and disaster response.