Alain Sabbe

Overview of Seismic Hazard and Vulnerability of Ordinary Buildings in Belgium: Methodological Aspects and Study Cases

Northwest Europe is a region in which damaging earthquakes exist. Assessing the risks of damages is useful, but this is not an easy work based on exact science.In this paper, we propose a general tool for a first level assessment of seismic risks (rapid diagnosis). General methodological aspects are presented. For a given building, the risk is represented by a volume in a multi‐dimensional space. This space is defined by axes representing the main parameters that have an influence on the risk. We notably express the importance of including a parameter to consider the specific value of cultural heritage.Then we apply the proposed tool to analyze and compare methods of seismic risk assessment used in Belgium. They differ by the spatial scale of the studied area. Study cases for the whole Belgian Territory and for part of cities in Liege and Mons (Be) aim also to give some sense of the overall risk in Belgium.