scholarly journals SEISMIC RISK IN GREECE: WHAT RECENT EARTHQUAKES HAVE TAUGHT US

2002 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 99S-111S
Author(s):  
Vassilis LEKIDIS ◽  
Petros DIMITRIU
Author(s):  
M. Di Ludovico ◽  
G. De Martino ◽  
A. Prota ◽  
G. Manfredi ◽  
M. Dolce

AbstractRecent devastating earthquakes outlined the importance of quantifying losses and the amount of resources needed for the reconstruction process. The restoration of public or residential buildings in the aftermath of the seismic event may significantly affect national economy. This remarks the primary role and crucial need of having accurate predictions of direct and indirect costs for reconstruction in order to plan effective risk mitigation strategies and perform reliable loss scenarios. The recent Italian seismic events have been a unique occasion to collect observational data on existing buildings. The present work, based on the Italian experience of recent earthquakes, aims at discussing the main aspects related to the damage assessment of residential buildings and reconstruction models together with the huge amount of data collected in the reconstruction processes. In particular, an in-depth analysis of the data provided by the reconstruction process of 2009 L’Aquila earthquake is reported focussing on repair and strengthening intervention costs as a function of the empirical damage,repairability issues, and assistance to population costs. The data are discussed separately for reinforced concrete and masonry residential buildings and refers about 10,100 buildings located Outside Historical Centres (OHC) and Inside Historical Centres (IHC). Finally, the criteria adopted for the definition of the building seismic risk classes at the base of the Italian guidelines for seismic risk classification of constructions are presented together with recent policies adopted in Italy in terms of fiscal deduction for strengthening interventions on private residential buildings.


2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (10) ◽  
pp. 1055-1066 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Hsein Juang ◽  
Jianye Ching ◽  
Lei Wang ◽  
Sara Khoshnevisan ◽  
Chih-Sheng Ku

Liquefaction often causes damage to infrastructure such as buildings, bridges, and lifelines. Liquefaction-induced ground movements such as settlement and lateral spread are of major concern to engineers who have to evaluate seismic risk. This paper deals with evaluation of liquefaction-induced settlement using a cone penetration test (CPT). Existing CPT-based models often overestimate liquefaction-induced settlement. In this paper, a database of case histories of settlement in recent earthquakes is compiled and used to calibrate the model bias of a CPT-based model, from which a simplified procedure is developed that allows for estimation of the probability of exceeding a specified settlement at a given site. Reasonable results are obtained using the developed simplified CPT-based model, as demonstrated in the examples presented.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 1795-1819 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Donà ◽  
Luca Bizzaro ◽  
Federico Carturan ◽  
Francesca da Porto

Recent earthquakes in Italy have significantly affected productive activities, particularly in business interruption (BI) and, consequently, heavy losses for companies, highlighting the need for appropriate seismic risk assessment and management. To estimate seismic risk accurately, both direct (repair/replacement) and indirect (BI) losses must be quantified. Companies’ balance sheets can be used to estimate BI losses, which, however, are very sensitive to business recovery strategies (BRSs) devised by corporate managers after the seismic event. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of BRSs on seismic risk estimates and consequently on structural retrofitting cost-effectiveness. A loss model (including direct and indirect costs and BRS effects) was defined, based on a real-life case study (a biomedical packaging company that was damaged by the 2012 Italian earthquake but recovered soon after) and was used in parametric risk analyses assessing several types of company vulnerabilities and seismic hazards. In areas with low-to-moderate seismicity, seismic retrofitting of existing reinforced concrete factories may be justified or otherwise, depending on whether BRSs are considered or not.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (Vol 63 (2020)) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Solarino ◽  
Monica Amaral Ferreira ◽  
Gemma Musacchio ◽  
Rajesh Rupakhety ◽  
Hugo O’Neill ◽  
...  

The present paper describes the process of moving from a research study of most common vulnerable non-structural elements, to deliver solutions, tools and guidelines to improve understanding of and responsiveness to community concerns about seismic risk and non-structural elements. The observed damage to non-structural elements following recent earthquakes in Italy, Portugal and Iceland, were used for designing communication tools under the KnowRISK EU project for multi-stakeholders (students, business and citizens): the Practical Guide, the Students Short Guide, the KnowRISK Portfolio of Solutions, the Move, Protect and Secure video, the augmented reality apps, the maquettes, the students notebooks, videos, board games and hands-on tools. The philosophy behind these deliverables is that some risks, once identified, can be eliminated or reduced by informing people and suggesting preventive or emergency measures. These tools are devoted to improving the seismic performance of non-structural elements and to reduce the associated economic losses, loss of functionality, and potential threats to life safety. The rationale behind the selection of the information that people need to know for converting knowledge to more safety is discussed and a description of the transference of the findings of research to communication solutions is presented. The tools were planned following the engagement-model in risk communication to ensure that needs of communities and selected stakeholders were acknowledged, and that recipients are addressed in a way that appeals to them. Different media and communication channels such as print, television, online, face-to face communication and interviews were used for risk communication.


2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (41) ◽  
pp. E9532-E9541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom R. Robinson ◽  
Nicholas J. Rosser ◽  
Alexander L. Densmore ◽  
Katie J. Oven ◽  
Surya N. Shrestha ◽  
...  

High death tolls from recent earthquakes show that seismic risk remains high globally. While there has been much focus on seismic hazard, large uncertainties associated with exposure and vulnerability have led to more limited analyses of the potential impacts of future earthquakes. We argue that as both exposure and vulnerability are reducible factors of risk, assessing their importance and variability allows for prioritization of the most effective disaster risk-reduction (DRR) actions. We address this through earthquake ensemble modeling, using the example of Nepal. We model fatalities from 90 different scenario earthquakes and establish whether impacts are specific to certain scenario earthquakes or occur irrespective of the scenario. Our results show that for most districts in Nepal impacts are not specific to the particular characteristics of a single earthquake, and that total modeled impacts are skewed toward the minimum estimate. These results suggest that planning for the worst-case scenario in Nepal may place an unnecessarily large burden on the limited resources available for DRR. We also show that the most at-risk districts are predominantly in rural western Nepal, with ∼9.5 million Nepalis inhabiting districts with higher seismic risk than Kathmandu. Our proposed approach provides a holistic consideration of seismic risk for informing contingency planning and allows the relative importance of the reducible components of risk (exposure and vulnerability) to be estimated, highlighting factors that can be targeted most effectively. We propose this approach for informing contingency planning, especially in locations where information on the likelihood of future earthquakes is inadequate.


2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 348-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatima Zohra Baba Hamed ◽  
Driss Djaouad Rahal ◽  
Farid Rahal

The recent earthquakes in Algeria have caused significant human and economic losses. The frequent occurrence of damaging earthquakes clearly demonstrates the urgent need of study on seismic risk assessment methods of buildings to effectively reduce the impact of earthquake in Algerian cities. This article contributes to the development and the application of a seismic risk method, appropriate to Algerian building specificities. This method considers five damage levels, defined accordingly to macroseismic intensity and the seismic quality of the building by means of a vulnerability index. The present paper summarises the development of a tool to integrate seismic hazard and structural information and support the decision making process in identification of seismic risk. This tool could be used in the inspection of buildings and the optimal prioritisation of strengthening and preventives remedial actions that are necessary prior to a major earthquake event.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 781-790
Author(s):  
M. Rizwan Akram ◽  
Ali Yesilyurt ◽  
A.Can. Zulfikar ◽  
F. Göktepe

Research on buried gas pipelines (BGPs) has taken an important consideration due to their failures in recent earthquakes. In permanent ground deformation (PGD) hazards, seismic faults are considered as one of the major causes of BGPs failure due to accumulation of impermissible tensile strains. In current research, four steel pipes such as X-42, X-52, X-60, and X-70 grades crossing through strike-slip, normal and reverse seismic faults have been investigated. Firstly, failure of BGPs due to change in soil-pipe parameters have been analyzed. Later, effects of seismic fault parameters such as change in dip angle and angle between pipe and fault plane are evaluated. Additionally, effects due to changing pipe class levels are also examined. The results of current study reveal that BGPs can resist until earthquake moment magnitude of 7.0 but fails above this limit under the assumed geotechnical properties of current study. In addition, strike-slip fault can trigger early damage in BGPs than normal and reverse faults. In the last stage, an early warning system is proposed based on the current procedure. 


1874 ◽  
Vol s3-7 (40) ◽  
pp. 384-387
Author(s):  
C. G. Rockwood
Keyword(s):  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Karagiannakis

This paper deals with state of the art risk and resilience calculations for industrial plants. Resilience is a top priority issue on the agenda of societies due to climate change and the all-time demand for human life safety and financial robustness. Industrial plants are highly complex systems containing a considerable number of equipment such as steel storage tanks, pipe rack-piping systems, and other installations. Loss Of Containment (LOC) scenarios triggered by past earthquakes due to failure on critical components were followed by severe repercussions on the community, long recovery times and great economic losses. Hence, facility planners and emergency managers should be aware of possible seismic damages and should have already established recovery plans to maximize the resilience and minimize the losses. Seismic risk assessment is the first step of resilience calculations, as it establishes possible damage scenarios. In order to have an accurate risk analysis, the plant equipment vulnerability must be assessed; this is made feasible either from fragility databases in the literature that refer to customized equipment or through numerical calculations. Two different approaches to fragility assessment will be discussed in this paper: (i) code-based Fragility Curves (FCs); and (ii) fragility curves based on numerical models. A carbon black process plant is used as a case study in order to display the influence of various fragility curve realizations taking their effects on risk and resilience calculations into account. Additionally, a new way of representing the total resilience of industrial installations is proposed. More precisely, all possible scenarios will be endowed with their weighted recovery curves (according to their probability of occurrence) and summed together. The result is a concise graph that can help stakeholders to identify critical plant equipment and make decisions on seismic mitigation strategies for plant safety and efficiency. Finally, possible mitigation strategies, like structural health monitoring and metamaterial-based seismic shields are addressed, in order to show how future developments may enhance plant resilience. The work presented hereafter represents a highly condensed application of the research done during the XP-RESILIENCE project, while more detailed information is available on the project website https://r.unitn.it/en/dicam/xp-resilience.


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