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Vulnerability of Building, urban infrastructure and system: The case of Mt. Etna
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Abstract
Natural disasters, such as earthquakes and volcanoes, have strong effects on the socio-economic
wellbeing of countries and their people. The consequences of these events can lead to complex
cascades of related incidents; when these expand across sectors and borders, and in more serious
contexts, they can threaten our basic survivability. These events have clearly demonstrated that
preparedness and disaster management is a dynamic process that requires a holistic analysis of critical
interdependencies among core infrastructures.
In this context of complexity, uncertainty and doubt, the Disruption Index (DI) proposed in the
framework of the UPStrat-MAFA project aims to improve our understanding of earthquake and
volcano hazards and their impacts. Several guiding principles and methods have been developed to
serve as the basis to measure the different earthquake impacts, with analysis and discussion of the data
that provide clearer pictures of how the systems and the disruption of their functionality affect an
urban area. The main concepts that explain the DI can be found in Ferreira et al. (2014). Constructing
the DI requires good quality information about the physical, spatial and vulnerability conditions of the
study area; this means the information that reflects the full knowledge of the true situatio