A disaster risk management performance index

The Risk Management Index, RMI, proposed in this paper, brings together a group of indicators that measure risk management performance and effectiveness. These indicators reflect the organizational, development, capacity and institutional actions taken to reduce vulnerability and losses in a given area, to prepare for crisis and to recover efficiently from disasters. This index is designed to assess risk management performance. It provides a quantitative measure of management based on predefined qualitative targets or benchmarks that risk management efforts should aim to achieve. The design of the RMI involved establishing a scale of achievement levels or determining the distance between current conditions and an objective threshold or conditions in a reference country, sub-national region, or city. The proposed RMI is constructed by quantifying four public policies, each of which is described by six indicators. The mentioned policies include the identification of risk, risk reduction, disaster management, and governance and financial protection. Risk identification comprises the individual perception, social representation and objective assessment; risk reduction involves the prevention and mitigation; disaster management comprises response and recovery; and, governance and financial protection policy is related to institutionalization and risk transfer. Results at the urban, national and sub-national levels, which illustrate the application of the RMI in those scales, are finally given

New methodology for urban seismic risk assessment from a holistic perspective

The seismic risk evaluation usually works with a fragmented concept of risk, which depends on the scientific discipline in charge of the assessment. To achieve an effective performance of the risk management, it is necessary to define risk as the potential economic, social and environmental consequences due to a hazardous phenomenon in a period of time. This article presents a methodology which evaluates the seismic risk from a holistic perspective, which means, it takes into account the expected physical damage and also the conditions related to social fragility and lack of resilience, which favour the second order effects when a hazard event strikes an urban centre. This seeks to obtain results which are useful in the decision making process for risk reduction. The proposed method for urban seismic risk evaluation uses the fuzzy sets theory in order to handle qualitative concepts and variables involved in the assessment, the physical risk level and aggravation level, related to the social fragility and the lack of resilience, are evaluated and finally a total risk level is determinate

Urban Seismic Risk Evaluation: A Holistic Approach

Risk has been defined, for management purposes, as the potential economic, social and environmental consequences of hazardous events that may occur in a specified period of time. However, in the past, the concept of risk has been defined in a fragmentary way in many cases, according to each scientific discipline involved in its appraisal. From the perspective of this article, risk requires a multidisciplinary evaluation that takes into account not only the expected physical damage, the number and type of casualties or economic losses, but also the conditions related to social fragility and lack of resilience conditions, which favour the second order effects (indirect effects) when a hazard event strikes an urban centre. The proposed general method of urban risk evaluation is multi hazard and holistic, that is, an integrated and comprehensive approach to guide decision-making. The evaluation of the potential physical damage (hard approach) as the result of the convolution of hazard and physical vulnerability of buildings and infrastructure is the first step of this method. Subsequently, a set of social context conditions that aggravate the physical effects are also considered (soft approach). In the method here proposed, the holistic risk evaluation is based on urban risk indicators. According to this procedure, a physical risk index is obtained, for each unit of analysis, from existing loss scenarios, whereas the total risk index is obtained by factoring the former index by an impact factor or aggravating coefficient, based on variables associated with the socioeconomic conditions of each unit of analysis. Finally, the proposed method is applied in its single hazard form to the holistic seismic risk evaluation for the cities of Bogota (Colombia) and Barcelona (Spain)

Computational Tool for Post-Earthquake Evaluation of Damage in Buildings

A method and a computational tool oriented to assist the damage and safety evaluation of buildings after strong earthquakes is described in this article. The input of the model is the subjective and incomplete information on the building state, obtained by inspectors which are possibly not expert professionals of the field of building safety. The damage levels of the structural components are usually described by linguistic qualifications which can be adequately processed by computational intelligence techniques based on neuro-fuzzy systems what facilitate the complex and urgent tasks of engineering decision-making on the building occupancy after a seismic disaster. The hybrid neuro-fuzzy system used is based on a special three-layer feedforward artificial neural network and fuzzy rule bases and is an effective tool during the emergency response phase providing decisions about safety, habitability, and reparability of the buildings. Examples of application of the computer program are given for two different building classes

Holistic Urban Seismic Risk Evaluation of Megacities: Application and Robustness

From a holistic perspective, disaster risk requires a multidisciplinary evaluation that takes into account not only the expected physical damage, the number and type of casualties or economic losses, but also the conditions related to social fragility and lack of resilience conditions, which favor the second order effects when a hazard event strikes an urban center. In this chapter, the urban risk is evaluated using composite indicators or indices. Expected building damage and losses in the infrastructure, obtained from loss scenarios are basic information for the evaluation of the physical risk index in each unit of analysis. The holistic evaluation of disaster risk is achieved affecting the physical risk with an impact factor, obtained from contextual conditions, such as the socioeconomic fragility and the lack of resilience, that aggravate the physical risk. Available data about these conditions at urban level are necessary to apply the method. The model is explained and the benefits of this approach are illustrated, inviting to the risk management of urban centers

Probabilistic seismic hazard and risk assessment in Spain

This monograph explains how probabilistic seismic risk assessments can be performed at different resolution levels using the same methodology, providing results in terms of the same metrics; but it also highlights what the differences in terms of inputs for the analysis are in the different cases. A country level assessment is first performed using a coarsegrain exposure database that includes only the building stock in the urban regions of Spain. A detailed urban seismic risk assessment is performed for Lorca, Murcia, Spain. In both cases, the fully probabilistic seismic risk results are expressed in terms of the loss exceedance curve, which is the main output, from where different probabilistic risk metrics, such as the average annual loss and the probable maximum loss can be derived. Because of the damage data availability for the Lorca, May 2011, earthquake, a comparison between the observed losses and those modelled using an earthquake scenario with similar characteristics in terms of location, magnitude and spectral accelerations was done for the building stock of the city. The results of the comparison are presented in terms of expected losses (in monetary terms) and damage levels related to the obtained mean damage ratios are compared with those observed by post-earthquake surveys. This monograph is an effort to explain, in a transparent and comprehensive way, through a step by step example, how risk can be calculated in probabilistic terms and what are the influences of the inputs in each of the stages and what the obtained results mean. After reviewing several available tools to estimate catastrophe risk by means of probabilistic approaches, the CAPRA Platform was chosen because its flexibility, compatibility with the assessments to be performed at different resolution levels and its open-source/freeware characteristics

Urban seismic risk index for Medellín, Colombia, based on probabilistic loss and casualties estimations

Medellín is the second largest city of Colombia with more than 2 million inhabitants according to the latest census and with more than 240,000 public and private buildings. It is located on an intermediate seismic hazard area according to the seismic zonation of Colombia although no destructive earthquakes have occurred having as a consequence low seismic risk awareness among its inhabitants. Using the results of a fully probabilistic risk assessment of the city with a building by building resolution level and considering the dynamic soil response, average annual losses by sectors as well as casualties and other direct effects are obtained and aggregated at county level. Using the holistic evaluation module of the multi-hazard risk assessment CAPRA platform, EvHo, a comprehensive assessment that considered the social fragility and lack or resilience at county level is performed making use of a set of indicators with the objective of capturing the aggravating conditions of the initial physical impact. The urban seismic risk index, USRi, is obtained at county level which is useful to communicate risk to decision-makers and stakeholders besides making easy identifying potential zones that can be problematic in terms of several dimensions of the vulnerability. This case study is an example of how a multidisciplinary research on disaster risk reduction helps to show how risk analysis can be of high relevance for decision-making processes in disaster risk management

Hybrid loss exceedance curve (HLEC) for disaster risk assessment

Taken into account that the natural hazard risk is a contingent liability and, therefore, a sovereign risk for national governments, it is important to assess properly the potential losses to design a suitable risk reduction, retention and transfer strategy. In this article, a disaster risk assessment methodology is proposed based on two approaches: on the one hand, the empiric estimation of losses, using information available from local disaster databases, allowing estimating losses due to small-scale events and, on the other hand, probabilistic evaluations to estimate losses for greater or even catastrophic events, for which information usually is not available due to the lack of historical data. A ‘‘hybrid’’ loss exceedance curve is thus determined, which combines the results of these two approaches and represents the disaster risk in a proper and complete way. This curve merges two components: the corresponding to small and moderate losses, calculated using an inductive and retrospective analysis, and the corresponding to extreme losses, calculated using a deductive and prospective analysis. Applications of this risk assessment technique are given in this article for eleven countries