ShakeDaDO: A data collection combining earthquake building damage and ShakeMap parameters for Italy

In this article, we present a new data collection that combines information about earthquake damage with seismic shaking. Starting from the Da.D.O. database, which provides information on the damage of individual buildings subjected to sequences of past earthquakes in Italy, we have generated ShakeMaps for all the events with magnitude greater than 5.0 that have contributed to these sequences. The sequences under examination are those of Irpinia 1980, Umbria Marche 1997, Pollino 1998, Molise 2002, L'Aquila 2009 and Emilia 2012. In this way, we were able to combine, for a total of the 117,695 buildings, the engineering parameters included in Da.D.O., but revised and reprocessed in this application, and the ground shaking data for six different variables (namely, intensity in MCS scale, PGA, PGV, SA at 0.3s, 1.0s and 3.0s). The potential applications of this data collection are innumerable: from recalibrating fragility curves to training machine learning models to quantifying earthquake damage. This data collection will be made available within Da.D.O., a platform of the Italian Department of Civil Protection, developed by EUCENTRE

EUCENTRE and seismic emergency: technical preparedness activities and response after the central Italy earthquake

Modul za napredne seizmičke procjene je služba za tehničku intervenciju nakon potresa koju je EUCENTRE tijekom godina razvijao kroz niz nacionalnih i europskih pilot-projekata, terenskih vježbi i izravnih iskustava nakon posljednjih velikih potresnih događaja koji su pogodili Italiju od 2009. Sustav se sastoji od službe čije se središte za izradu scenarija štete i mobilne jedinice za procjenu oštećenja na terenu nalazi u Paviji. Nakon potresa u središnjoj Italiji, EUCENTRE je oko osam mjeseci bio uključen u niz aktivnosti, uključujući tehničku podršku talijanskom Odjelu civilne zaštite, zajedničku izviđačku misiju s međunarodno prepoznatim istraživačkim institutima.The ASA (Advanced Seismic Assessment) module is a post-earthquake technical intervention service, developed over the years by the EUCENTRE Foundation through a series of national and European pilot projects, field exercises, and direct experience, after the latest major seismic events that struck Italy since 2009. The system consists of a service managed at the headquarters in Pavia for the development of damage scenarios, and of a mobile unit for the on-site damage assessments. After the Central Italy earthquake, the Foundation has been involved for about eight months in several activities, including provision of technical support to the Italian Department of Civil Protection, joint reconnaissance with internationally acknowledged research institutes

Towards Regional Safety Assessment of Bridge Infrastructure

In the aftermath of disasters, it is increasingly recognized that while their occurrence is often inevitable, proactive risk management through adequate prioritization and preventative measures ought to be of utmost importance. Regions with large infrastructure networks (e.g. roadway bridges) exposed to different types of hazards and structural ageing/deteriorating over time are particularly vulnerable. Such vulnerability can become even more relevant in developing countries, which can face higher challenges in coping with extreme events. This paper describes a study on the bridge infrastructure network in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Israel and Italy as part of the project INFRA-NAT (www.infra-nat.eu). An extended database of each countrys bridge population is developed through a data collection form and allows for a detailed exposure model of the bridge network to be compiled. By considering the general characteristics of the bridge population, a representative sample of bridges is chosen to develop fragility functions for bridges exposed to seismic hazard. The connectivity of the network is modelled and the entire bridge network vulnerability is considered in a more comprehensive and global manner for seismic hazard and infrastructure ageing. The scope of this work is to provide practical web-based tools and databases for each country with which more informed decisions can be made related to the most vulnerable parts of the country and where resources should be invested for increased resilience.This research has been carried out under the INFRANAT project (www.infra-nat.eu) co-funded by European Commission ECHO – Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection. Project reference: 783298 – INFRA-NAT – UCPM-2017-PP-AG

Vibration-based and near real-time seismic damage assessment adaptive to building knowledge level

This paper presents a multi-level methodology for near real-time seismic damage assessment of multi-story buildings, tailored to the available level of knowledge and information from sensors. The proposed methodology relates changes in the vibratory characteristics of a building—evaluated via alternative dynamic identification techniques—to the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS-98) damage grades. Three distinct levels of knowledge are considered for the building, with damage classification made through (i) empirical formulation based on quantitative ranges reported in the literature, (ii) analytical formulation exploiting the effective stiffness concept, and (iii) numerical modelling including a simplified equivalent single-degree-of-freedom model or a detailed finite element model of the building. The scope of the study is twofold: to construct a framework for integrating structural health monitoring into seismic damage assessment and to evaluate consistencies/discrepancies among different identification techniques and model-based and model-free approaches. The experimental data from a multi-story building subject to sequential shaking are used to demonstrate the proposed methodology and compare the effectiveness of the different approaches to damage assessment. The results show that accurate damage estimates can be achieved not only using model-driven approaches with enhanced information but also model-free alternatives with scarce information

Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens

Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of Critical Port Infrastructure Components by Modelling the Soil-Wharf-Crane Interaction

This paper aims to investigate the seismic vulnerability of key port infrastructure components by using the outcomes of advanced numerical analysis. For the first time, to the best knowledge of the authors, a pile-supported wharf structure, the soil deposits where the wharf lies, and a crane typically operating on the wharf are numerically modelled as a combined system. The starting point for building the numerical model is the main components of strategic facilities at the port of Gioia Tauro (Italy), which is a strategic hub for container traffic located in one of the most seismically active regions of the Mediterranean Sea. Based on the results obtained from two-dimensional (2D) dynamic analyses, fragility curves were developed for single port components and the wharf-crane-soil system. A scenario-based seismic damage assessment was then exemplified to compare the predictions resulting from the fragility model presented in this work with the relevant data available in the literature. It turns out that, besides some inevitable variations, expected damage percentages were in general agreement. As the main contribution of this work, derived fragility curves might be adopted as an effective tool for rapid evaluation of the seismic performance of port components during the development of strategies for risk mitigation and also the emergency management in case of an earthquake

Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of Critical Port Infrastructure Components by Modelling the Soil-Wharf-Crane Interaction

This paper aims to investigate the seismic vulnerability of key port infrastructure components by using the outcomes of advanced numerical analysis. For the first time, to the best knowledge of the authors, a pile-supported wharf structure, the soil deposits where the wharf lies, and a crane typically operating on the wharf are numerically modelled as a combined system. The starting point for building the numerical model is the main components of strategic facilities at the port of Gioia Tauro (Italy), which is a strategic hub for container traffic located in one of the most seismically active regions of the Mediterranean Sea. Based on the results obtained from two-dimensional (2D) dynamic analyses, fragility curves were developed for single port components and the wharf-crane-soil system. A scenario-based seismic damage assessment was then exemplified to compare the predictions resulting from the fragility model presented in this work with the relevant data available in the literature. It turns out that, besides some inevitable variations, expected damage percentages were in general agreement. As the main contribution of this work, derived fragility curves might be adopted as an effective tool for rapid evaluation of the seismic performance of port components during the development of strategies for risk mitigation and also the emergency management in case of an earthquake

EUCENTRE e l’emergenza sismica: attività preparatorie e supporto in emergenza durante il Sisma in Centro Italia

Il modulo ASA (Advanced Seismic Assessment) è un servizio di intervento tecnico nel post terremoto, che la Fondazione EUCENTRE ha sviluppato negli anni attraverso una serie di progetti pilota nazionali ed europei, di esercitazioni su campo e di esperienze dirette in seguito agli ultimi tre grandi eventi sismici che hanno colpito l’Italia dal 2009. Il sistema è costituito da un servizio gestito nella sede di Pavia per quanto riguarda gli scenari di danno e parte della logistica, e da un’unità mobile dislocata sul territorio impiegata per la valutazione delle strutture danneggiate. Il recente sisma in Centro Italia ha visto la Fondazione coinvolta per circa otto mesi su diversi fronti, dal supporto tecnico su campo al Dipartimento della Protezione Civile Nazionale, alle attività di ricognizione tecnico-scientifica in collaborazione con istituti di ricerca di fama internazionale, alle attività divulgative e informative. L’esperienza ha ancora una volta messo in evidenza da un lato le indiscutibili potenzialità del sistema, e dall’altro una serie di spunti di riflessione per il miglioramento dello stesso e della gestione tecnica emergenziale. The ASA (Advanced Seismic Assessment) module is a post-earthquake technical intervention service, that the EUCENTRE Foundation developed over the years through a series of national and European pilot projects, field exercises and direct experiences after the last major seismic events that struck Italy since 2009. The system consists of a service managed at the headquarters in Pavia for the development of damage scenarios and for part of the logistic, and of a mobile unit on field for the damage assessment. After the Central Italy earthquake, the Foundation has been involved for about eight months on several activities, including on field technical support to the Department of National Civil Protection, joint reconnaissanceses with internationally renowned research institutes, and dissemination activities. Once again, the experience showed the unquestionable potentialities of the system on one hand and, on the other, suggested improvements both for the service itself and for the technical emergency management