D8: Review and validation of existing vulnerability displacement-based models

Aerial view of old town in Rhodes

Here above you can download the full text of the deliverable D8.

In the last few decades a dramatic increase in the losses caused by earthquakes has been observed worldwide. Reasons for the increased losses are linked to the development of many large cities in regions of high seismic hazard with hundreds of thousands of buildings with unknown structural properties. In order to fill in this void of knowledge, several methods for seismic vulnerability assessment of existing buildings have been developed in recent years. The formulation of procedure to identify the seismic vulnerability for a given region is important not only to predict the economic impact of future earthquakes, but also to mitigate the risk.

Additionally, when the seismic vulnerability is assessed in historical centres, considerably affected by earthquakes, as for instance has occurred to L’Aquila, 2009, the vulnerability methods used should also meet the requirement of being able to identify not only the structural vulnerability but also the possible losses associated with the artistic and cultural value of the heritage stock.

In order to identify seismic vulnerability assessment methods at territorial scale suitable for the stated objectives of PERPETUATE project project the present deliverable D8 collects and briefly reviews the methods for vulnerability assessment of buildings at large geographical scales present in literature from the early 70’s to the present time. The results are presented in §2 and §3. The main objective of this review is to clarify the extent of applicability of each of these methods to the specific requirements of the historic building stock.

In § 4 first a set of criteria to identify a suitable procedure to be used within the PERPETUATE project are proposed and discussed. The each of the methods reviewed in §3 is tested against these criteria and a scoring system and ranking order are offered to help choosing an appropriate procedure.

In § 5 conclusions on the process are drawn and the rationale for using the chosen procedure is presented.

Deliverable D8 (51)