The Selena-Rise Open Risk Package

Today, a considerable number of non-commercial seismic risk analysis tools are available. The happy circumstance that the tools are free is likely a result of the fact that the group of potential users or customers is small and with limited funds which are not sufficient for the distribution of commercial or proprietary seismic risk assessment software. Aware of the need for non-proprietary and open-source software for seismic risk and loss computation, the International Centre for Geohazards (ICG), through NORSAR (Norway) and the University of Alicante (Spain), began the development of the tool SELENA in 2004. The current version 4.1 of SELENA (Seismic Loss Estimation using a Logic Tree Approach; Molina et al., 2009), initially coded in MATLAB, has recently been translated into C. Thus, the code can be compiled as a stand-alone binary, which is then independent of MATLAB and its toolboxes. Furthermore, the code has been adapted in such a way that it can even be run in the free (open-source) MATLAB clone Octave. In order to make it even more attractive to use SELENA, the separate software tool RISe (Risk Illustrator for SELENA; Lang and Gutiérrez, 2009) has been developed to allow easy conversion of the geo-referenced SELENA input and output files into Google Earth kml-files. Since it is linked to the Google Earth visualization, the user automatically takes full advantage of the partly highresolution satellite images provided by Google Earth. This is particularly important in situations where other commercial GIS packages do not provide a high resolution database, or for developing countries where many cities and municipalities cannot be displayed on high resolution base maps other than Google Earth satellite images. RISe is customized to SELENA’s file structure, and it is further intended to assist the user during the different stages of the risk computation process. Like SELENA, RISe is openly distributed through NORSAR’s webpage www.norsar.no The open SELENA-RISe package is a powerful tool to conduct earthquake risk and loss computations at the level of geographical units (such as census tracts). Since SELENA offers a range of options to the user and is open to any user-defined input data, its application for scientific and analytical purposes is facilitated. In contrast, more practical applications of SELENA are enabled through its Google Earth interface RISe. This allows for easy identification of more vulnerable building typologies or building areas through a simple graphical visualization of inventory data and computation results. Further, SELENA-RISe can be used within cost benefit analyses since the impact of parameter changes (e.g. of building vulnerability) on final damage and loss estimates can be investigated and directly illustrated