The Role of Earthquake Vulnerability Research in Risk Mitigation  

Authors / CoAuthors

Edwards, M.

Abstract

The seismicity of the Australian continent is low to moderate by world standards. However, the seismic risk is much higher for some types of Australian infrastructure due to an incompatibility of structural vulnerability with local earthquake hazard. The earthquake risk in many regional neighbours is even higher due to high hazard, community exposure and vulnerability. The Risk and Impact Analysis Group is a multidisciplinary team at Geoscience Australia that is actively engaged in research to better understand earthquake risk in Australia and to assist agencies in neighbouring countries develop similar knowledge. In this presentation aspects of this work will be described with a particular focus on engineering vulnerability, post disaster information capture and how both can point to effective mitigation options. Risk is the combination of several components (hazard, exposure, vulnerability and impact) that combine to provide measures that can be very useful for decision makers. Vulnerability is the key link that translates hazard exposure to consequence. Vulnerability is typically expressed in physical terms but includes interdependent utility system vulnerability, economic activity vulnerability and the social vulnerability of communities. All four vulnerability types have been the subject of research at GA but the physical vulnerability is the primary link to the others. Vulnerability research for Australian infrastructure will be presented in the context of a holistic risk framework. Furthermore, the work in the Philippines to develop a first order national suite of models will also be presented. Post disaster survey data is invaluable for understanding the nature of asset vulnerability, developing empirical models and validating analytical models based on structural models. Geoscience Australia has developed a range of tools to assist with damage capture that have been used for several hazard types, including earthquake. Tools include portable street view imagery capture, GPS technology and hand-held computers. Experience with the application of these tools and the information that has been derived will be described along with current activity to improve their utility.

Product Type

nonGeographicDataset

eCat Id

71938

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Keywords

• External PublicationAbstract

( Theme )

• earthquakes

( Theme )

• risk assessment

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

• Earth Sciences

• Published_Internal

Publication Date

2011-01-01T00:00:00

Creation Date

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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem    

Classification - unclassified

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence    

Access - restricted

Use - license

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Purpose

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unknown

Topic Category

geoscientificInformation

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Unknown

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Extents

Reference System

Spatial Resolution

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