Martha L. Carreño

Framing vulnerability, risk and societal responses: the MOVE framework

The paper deals with the development of a general as well as integrative and holistic framework to systematize and assess vulnerability, risk and adaptation. The framework is a thinking tool meant as a heuristic that outlines key factors and different dimensions that need to be addressed when assessing vulnerability in the context of natural hazards and climate change. The approach underlines that the key factors of such a common framework are related to the exposure of a society or system to a hazard or stressor, the susceptibility of the system or community exposed, and its resilience and adaptive capacity. Additionally, it underlines the necessity to consider key factors and multiple thematic dimensions when assessing vulnerability in the context of natural and socio-natural hazards. In this regard, it shows key linkages between the different concepts used within the disaster risk management (DRM) and climate change adaptation (CCA) research. Further, it helps to illustrate the strong relationships between different concepts used in DRM and CCA. The framework is also a tool for communicating complexity and stresses the need for societal change in order to reduce risk and to promote adaptation. With regard to this, the policy relevance of the framework and first results of its application are outlined. Overall, the framework presented enhances the discussion on how to frame and link vulnerability, disaster risk, risk management and adaptation concepts.

Seismic vulnerability and risk evaluation methods for urban areas. A review with application to a pilot area

The most relevant seismic vulnerability and risk analysis methods are discussed and compared in this article using, as a pilot urban area, the city of Barcelona, Spain, where risk studies have been carried out over the last 15 years in the framework of different research projects. Most of the buildings in Barcelona, which have unreinforced masonry structure or reinforced concrete structure with waffled slab floors, show a high degree of vulnerability to earthquakes. The physical seismic risk but also the socio-economic implications of risk are considered in the article. The robustness of the innovative holistic approach, based on indicators related to the physical exposure, the social fragilities and the lack of resilience of urban area, is also proved. Using a geographic information system (GIS), the seismic risk results are described by means of scenarios of expected losses, but also as scenarios of probabilities of occurrence of predefined damage states.

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.

Probabilistic earthquake risk assessment using CAPRA: application to the city of Barcelona, Spain

The risk evaluation model CAPRA (Comprehensive Approach to Probabilistic Risk Assessment) is a techno-scientific methodology and information platform, composed of tools for evaluating and communicating risk at various territorial levels. The model allows evaluating losses on exposed elements using probabilistic metrics, such as the loss exceedance curve, the expected annual loss and the probable maximum loss, useful for multi-hazard risk analyses. In this article, the process of probabilistic seismic risk analysis is described, explaining the main features of the CAPRA modules of hazard, vulnerability and risk estimation applied to the city of Barcelona, Spain. In addition, according to the physical risk results and the information on the socioeconomic indicators of the city, this article presents the holistic evaluation of seismic risk, which is a valuable result to facilitate the integrated risk management by the different stakeholders involved in risk reduction decision making.

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.

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.

Disaster risk from a macroeconomic perspective: a metric for fiscal vulnerability evaluation

The Disaster Deficit Index (DDI) measures macroeconomic and financial risk in a country according to possible catastrophic scenario events. Extreme disasters can generate financial deficit due to sudden and elevated need of resources to restore affected inventories. The DDI captures the relationship between the economic loss that a country could experience when a catastrophic event occurs and the availability of funds to address the situation. The proposed model utilises the procedures of the insurance industry in establishing probable losses, based on critical impacts during a given period of exposure; for economic resilience, the model allows one to calculate the countrys financial ability to cope with a critical impact. There are limitations and costs associated with access to resources that one must consider as feasible values according to the countrys macroeconomic and financial conditions. This paper presents the DDI model and the results of its application to 19 countries of the Americas and aims to guide governmental decision-making in disaster risk reduction.

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.

Holistic Urban Seismic Risk Evaluation of Megacities: Application and Robustness

Disaster 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 (Cardona, 2004). Based on the formulation of disaster risk of UNDRO (1980) several methodologies for risk assessment have been developed from different perspectives in the last decades. 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 (direct impact), but also the conditions related to social fragility and lack of resilience conditions, which favour the second order effects (indirect impact) when a hazard event strike an urban centre (Cardona and Hurtado, 2000; Masure, 2003; Carreno et al., 2007a). Cardona (2001) developed a conceptual framework and a model for disaster risk analysis of a city from a holistic perspective. It considers both ‘‘hard’’ and ‘‘soft’’ risk variables of the urban centre, taking into account exposure, socioeconomic characteristics of the different localities (units) of the city and their disaster coping capacity or degree of resilience. The model was made to guide the decision-making in riskmanagement, helping to identify the critical zones of the city and their vulnerability from different professional disciplines. Carreno (2006) developed an alternative method for Urban Risk Evaluation, based on Cardona’s model (Cardona, 2001; Barbat and Cardona, 2003). The urban risk is evaluated using composite indicators or indices. Expected building damage and losses in the infrastructure, obtained from future loss scenarios are basic information for the evaluation of a physical risk index in each unit of analysis.

Probabilistic estimation of annual lost economic production due to premature deaths because of earthquakes

ABSTRACT A methodology to estimate, in a probabilistic way, the annual cost to society of premature deaths because of earthquakes is proposed in this article. The methodology makes use of results obtained by means of prospective and probabilistic seismic risk assessments where expected deaths caused by the collapse of buildings are obtained. Those results, combined with demographic and macroeconomic indicators such as the age distribution, life expectancy at birth, and per capita gross domestic product, are used to estimate the cost to society in terms of lost productivity due to premature mortality because of earthquakes. The proposed methodology does not attempt to estimate nor assign a cost to human lives at any stage, but the one associated to lost productivity at the societal level. One of the descriptors of the methodology is part of the components of the disability adjusted life year, a widely used metric in the public health field that estimates the burden of diseases based mostly on historical data. As an example, the methodology is applied to Medellín, the second largest city of Colombia, finding that the cost of lost productivity due to premature mortality because of earthquakes has a similar order of magnitude to the direct physical losses in the public and private building stock calculated in a previous probabilistic seismic risk assessment.