M. A. Ferreira

Informal education for disaster risk reduction

Our children are the future: their school buildings must be safe in the face of natural hazards and children must be empowered with an understanding of natural hazards and actions they can take to be better prepared for the next “event”. With respect to natural hazards, educational institutions have dual roles of caretakers who must ensure the safety of students in their charge and teachers responsible for educating students about natural hazards. This article presents a comparative study on earthquake risk reduction efforts in primary and secondary schools, based on surveys conducted in areas of varying seismic hazard in Iceland, Italy, and Portugal. The study evaluated the degree to which local authorities were involved in the dissemination of earthquake risk and hazard mitigation information, and specifically how this information was channelled to schools. Vulnerability mitigation for school building interiors (contents) and efforts towards educating pupils towards a culture of safety were also measured. In addition the article presents the risk reduction efforts implemented in Icelandic institutions that serve groups who are especially vulnerable in emergencies and compares those efforts with the efforts made in schools.

Disruption index, DI: an approach for assessing seismic risk in urban systems (theoretical aspects)

Urban systems are characterized by very complex interactions. After an earthquake, a wide variety of services, networks and urban facilities may be unavailable to the public during the system failure and recovery processes, thereby causing disruptions in the basic social needs of the affected area. After a disaster, communities face several challenges. For example, the lack of education may impose population migrations, or malfunctions in the electricity distribution system can produce electrical power outages of varying duration with respect to time and space, which generates consequences in the water distribution system, transportation, communications, etc. A methodology called the Disruption index (DI), based on graph theory, includes these multiple interdependencies. It has been developed to estimate the dysfunction of some fundamental dimensions of urban systems on a broad level, starting with the physical damages directly suffered by the exposed assets, proceeding to the impacts that each node has on the functional performance of the nodes depending on them, until reaching the top node. This paper presents the fundamental theory to support the DI concept. The DI provides the likely impacts and consequences of an earthquake in an urban area to fulfill hazard mitigation and provide civil protection agencies and local and state governments with a new decision-making instrument to reduce or prevent severe and recurrent impacts. The DI concept can also be extended to other natural and man-made disasters and may be used as a tool for optimizing the resources of the system components.

Education: Can a bottom-up strategy help for earthquake disaster prevention?

Abstract To comply with the need to spread the culture of earthquake disaster reduction, we rely on strategies that involve education. Risk education is a long-term process that passes from knowledge, through understanding, to choices and actions thrusting preparedness and prevention, over recovery. We set up strategies for prevention that encompass child and adult education, as a bottom-up approach, from raising awareness to reducing potential effects of disruption of society. Analysis of compulsory school education in three European countries at high seismic risk, namely Portugal, Iceland and Italy, reveals that generally there are a few State-backed plans. The crucial aspects of risk education concerning natural hazards are starting age, incompleteness of textbooks, and lack of in-depth studies of the pupils upon completion of their compulsory education cycle. Hands-on tools, immersive environments, and learn-by-playing approaches are the most effective ways to raise interest in children, to provide memory imprint as a message towards a culture of safety. A video game, Treme–treme, was prepared to motivate, educate, train and communicate earthquake risk to players/pupils. The game focuses on do’s and don’ts for earthquake shaking, and allows children to think about what might be useful in the case of evacuation. Education of the general public was addressed using audio-visual products strongly linked to the social, historical and cultural background of each country. Five videos tackled rising of awareness of seismic hazards in Lisbon, the area surrounding Reykjavik, Naples, and Catania, four urban areas prone to earthquake disasters.

QuakeIST® earthquake scenario simulator using interdependencies

Abstract Earthquakes are a permanent threat to urban environments worldwide. The communication of the related risk demands accurate damage model simulations and an interactive visualization of results. The aim of this paper is to provide a realistic problem-solving environment for earthquake discussions among decision makers, stakeholders, and the general public. QuakeIST® is an integrated earthquake simulator developed by Instituto Superior Técnico (Lisbon University), oriented towards the performance of risk calculations concerning damage propagations that use the Disruption Index concept. This software imports data stored in a GIS environment, handles different ground motion scenarios, and deals with a complex situation of different soils and vulnerabilities of various layers of civil structures (buildings, lifelines, and other urban structures). It models interdependencies between several infrastructures and between infrastructures and the urban tissue. The computer programme is very versatile, written in separate modules, allowing an experimented user to incorporate new formulations. Results can be treated with any statistical application and most common GIS commercial environments can produced their geographic visualization. Current progress and new upcoming are briefly described at the end of the paper.

The role of the urban system dysfunction in the assessment of seismic risk in the Mt. Etna area (Italy)

A procedure for seismic risk assessment is applied to the Mt. Etna area (eastern Sicily, Italy) through assessment of urban system dysfunction following the occurrence of an earthquake. The tool used is based on the Disruption Index as a concept implemented in Simulator QuakeIST, which defines urban disruption following a natural disaster. The first element of the procedure is the definition of the seismic input, which is based on information about historical seismicity and seismogenic faults. The second element is computation of seismic impact on the building stock and infrastructure in the area considered. Information on urban-scale vulnerability was collected and a geographic information system was used to organise the data relating to buildings and network systems (e.g., building stock, schools, strategic structures, lifelines). The central idea underlying the definition of the Disruption Index is identification and evaluation of the impact on a target community through the physical elements that most contribute to severe disruption. The procedure applied in this study (i.e., software and data) constitutes a very useful operational tool to drive the development of strategies to minimise risks from earthquakes.

The Disruption Index (DI) as a tool to measure disaster mitigation strategies

Apart from the loss of lives, injuries and homeless resulting from an earthquake, not only the economy and physical landscape are altered, but also the lives of citizens and their places of work are dramatically altered. If critical services and functions are disrupted for more than a reasonable time period, consequences can be severe. All communities are at risk and face potential disaster, if unprepared. The Disruption Index (DI) is a tool that allows the representation of a complex and multidimensional situation in a concise and easier way, providing institutions and communities with a way to identify the global earthquake impact in a geographical area, the elements at risk, and the means to reduce it. In the present paper, after a short review of the concept of DI, its geographic (spatial) distribution is developed and an application to some cities in Algarve (Portugal) is made. Then, the use of DI in the context of measuring the risk reduction for alternative disaster mitigation strategies is introduced and illustrations are presented.

Dissemination strategies to instil a culture of safety on earthquake hazard and risk

Abstract Dissemination of knowledge should be a core objective for scientists who work with communities exposed to natural disasters. This task requires the spread of knowledge, to make the public aware in a simple, easy-to-understand, manner, yet without any loss of accuracy. ‘Urban Disaster Prevention Strategies using Macroseismic Fields and Fault Sources’ (UPStrat-MAFA) was a European project devoted to the implementation of strategies for urban disaster prevention of several aspects of seismic hazard, including the damage state and the earthquake impact. The project carried out numerous outreach activities for the public and stakeholders, to encourage the development of a bottom-up strategy towards disasters mitigation. Here we provide a description of actions that have been aimed at: (1) ensuring effective dissemination and communication of the project outcomes, also after its completion; and (2) raising public awareness and understanding in countries exposed to earthquake hazard.

Estimating Human Losses in Earthquake Models: A Discussion

Several studies and methodologies have been developed in recent years to model the number of victims and injuries caused by natural disasters such as earthquakes. Unfortunately, models and simulations developed up to now show substantial variability in the numbers of victims when compared with real values, because they do not consider a multi-parameter analysis including variables such as seismic intensity, degrees of building damage, percent of occupancy at the time of the event, individual behaviour (age, gender, mobility within the house during the shaking, etc.) or emergency response (effectiveness in response). When dealing with this topic we should separate the situation of estimation of human losses for emergency preparedness from the estimation right after a given event. In this paper the second of these issues will be analysed. People’s reactions prior to and during the shaking together with the building behaviour cause great differences in the number of deaths and injuries for a given earthquake. The European Macroseismic Scale (EMS-98) provides five grades for damage classification from “Negligible to slight” damage (D1) to “Collapse” (D5). While D5 class includes total or near total collapse of the buildings, we propose a class D5+ to represent “totally collapsed” structures separately from “almost collapsed” so as to establish a direct relation between damage grade and death rate. Data from a few events in Portugal and Italy illustrate the difficulties in estimating human losses.

Earthquake Risk Reduction: From Scenario Simulators Including Systemic Interdependency to Impact Indicators

Earthquakes have a strong effect on the socio-economic well-being of countries; the consequences can lead to a complex cascade of related incidents, expanding across sectors and borders, and in a more serious context, to our basic survivability. An urban area consists on several complex and highly connected systems. A significant loss of housing, education, power outages or other component would have substantial negative impacts. How would constrains in residential areas affect the residential distribution of the region? How would a general change in accessibility due to severe damage affect the population or the economy (employment changes)?

New Tools for the Analysis of the Generalized Impact of Earthquake Events

Earthquakes and tsunamis continue to be some of the most disastrous natural events. In this review paper, we present the work developed by the Seismic Risks Group of Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST) in the last decade, with emphasis on the performance indicators proposed to deal with the effects of natural disasters. Starting with an appraisal of the world earthquake impacts since 1900, the text summarizes the most relevant impact indicators, namely, SIRIUS and disruption indexes (DI) for the urban and industrial fabrics, which includes cascading effects. Also, the early stage of the analysis of multi-hazard, namely for shaking and tsunami events, is reviewed. Finally, we use these impact indicators in conjunction with performance indicators (RRW – risk reduction worth and RAW – risk achievement worth) to communicate the risk to the population and mitigate the action of future events. Several conclusions can be taken from the work developed. The most important is that earthquake impacts cannot be measured only by human losses and losses to property, but indirect and cascading effects also play a huge role in the global impact, especially in moderate to large events.