TOPIC: SEISMIC RISK REDUCTION

OBJECTIVES:

A. Define Risk Reduction

B. Define Disaster Risk Reduction

C. Elaborate and discuss Acceptable Risk

D. Define Seismic Hazard Analysis

E. Purpose of Seismic Hazard Analysis

RISK REDUCTION IN RELATED TO EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING

A severe earthquake is a terrifying experience. Relatives, homes and goods can be lost in
only a few minutes. Compared to any other natural event, the earthquake is the most frightful
one, because it undermines the basic stability of human existence and the confidence that this
stability is under control. Earthquakes also impose challenges on communities and governments.
Deaths and economic assets at risk is growing as megacities and urban areas develop all over the
world. Considering all the possible effects of earthquake, reducing of risk is necessary.

Earthquake risk reduction is a complex affair involving many people of many vocations,
much information, many opinions and many decisions and actions. The relationship between the
contributing sets of information and people is illustrated schematically by the flowchart given in
the Figure.
FIGURE 1.1 Information Flow and those involved in the Earthquake Risk Reduction Process
Risk Reduction

- is the identification, evaluation, or prioritization of risks followed by coordinated and

economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability
or impact of unfortunate events or to maximize the realization of opportunities.

Various Sources of Risks

● financial markets
● threats from project failures
● legal liabilities
● credit risk
● accidents
● natural causes and disasters
● deliberate attack from an adversary
● events of uncertain

Earthquake Consequences and their Acceptability

Physical consequences of earthquakes for human beings:

1. Death and injury to human beings

2. Damage to the built and natural environments

Social and Economic Consequences:

1. Number of casualties
2. Trauma and bereavement
3. Loss of employment
4. Loss of employees/skills
5. Loss of heritage
6. Material damage cost
7. Business interruption
8. Consumption of materials and energy (sustaining resources)
9. Macro-economic impacts (negative and positive)

Post-earthquake economic consequences:

1. Cost of death and injury

2. Cost of damage
3. Losses of production and markets
4. Insurance claims
The above physical and socio-economic consequences should all be taken into account when the
acceptable consequences are being decided, i.e. the acceptable earthquake risk.

Both financially and technically, it is possible only to reduce these consequences for
strong earthquake shaking. The basic planning aims are to minimize the use of land subject to
the worst shaking or ground damage effects, such as fault rupture, landslides or liquefaction. The
basic design aims are therefore confined (a) to the reduction of loss of life in any earthquake,
either through collapse or through secondary damage such as falling debris or earthquake-
induced fire, and (b) to the reduction of damage and loss of use of the built environment.

Strategies to manage threats (uncertainties with negative consequences) typically include

avoiding the threat, reducing the negative effect or probability of the threat, transferring all or
part of the threat to another party, and even retaining some or all of the potential or actual
consequences of a particular threat, and the opposites for opportunities (uncertain future states
with benefits).

DISASTER RISK REDUCTION

“The more general term „disaster reduction‟ or „disaster risk reduction‟ is often used, to
mean the broad development and application of policies, strategies and practices to minimize
vulnerabilities and disaster risks throughout society, through prevention, mitigation and
preparedness.” – J. Twigg, 2004

Disaster Vs Hazards
Hazards – “best viewed as a naturally occurring or human-induced process, or event,
with the potential to create loss, that is, a general source of future danger” – K. Smith, 1991
Disasters – “are social phenomena that occur when a community suffers exceptional,
non-routine, levels of disruption and loss.” – K. Smith, 1991

Vulnerability – “The extent to which a person, group or socio-economic structure is

likely to be affected by a hazard (related to their capacity to anticipate it, cope with it, resist it
and recover from its impact.” - J. Twigg, 2004
“Timmerman (1981) viewed it as the degree of resistance offered by a social system to the
impact of a hazardous event. In turn, resistance depends on either resilience or reliability.” – K.
Smith, 1991
 *to an earthquake engineer, vulnerability means the quality of the built structure in terms of its
resistance to seismic stress.

Resilience - is a measure of the capacity to absorb and recover from the impact of a
hazardous event.
Reliability - reflects the frequency with which protective devices against hazard fail. But
extreme stress, for example from an earthquake, can disrupt road networks, electric power lines
or water systems.
ACCEPTABLE RISK

- “Acceptable risk is a probability of social or economic consequences due to earthquakes

that is low enough to be judged by appropriate authorities to represent a realistic basis for
determining design requirements for engineered structures.”

- EERI Committee of Seismic Risk

- Acceptable risk is “risk associated with the most acceptable option in a particular
decision problem.” – Fischhoff (1981)

- Acceptable risk problems are decision problems, and so “require a choice among
alternative courses of action.” – Fischhoff (1981)

The term 'acceptable risk' is a political concept. In a technical sense it is extremely vague,
yet it is generally more important in risk management. This concept is much more related to
voluntary and involuntary risks; from there only the concept of 'acceptable risk' or 'risk tolerance'
emerged (Smith 1992).

In fact determining which risks are acceptable is an important national issue. However,
acceptable risk does not take into effect the people cognitively thinking about risk (Slovic et al.
1985) rather takes into consideration the cultural aspects of what makes acceptable (Douglas and
Wildarsky 1982).

Acceptable risk is based on the answer for the following questions, which includes: the
cost of the alternatives for managing the risk? Does it include all present events, future events,
the people who get the benefits, and the people who bear the cost? Particularly different
geographic distributions, time distributions, demographic distribution gives answer to where to
draw the boundaries is essential in acceptable risk. Essentially, judgments of acceptability are
made at many levels by individuals, families and other groups, and by the society at large.
Further acceptable risk varies according to whether is it a voluntary or involuntary. People are
more likely to accept high risks when they do it voluntarily.

Earthquake hazard has in general low probability but high social and economic impact.
The aim of a risk management strategy, especially for lifelines, is to maintain community safety
and also to reduce physical damage and social and economic disruption. All decisions are based
on the selection of the acceptable risk for the estimated seismic scenario.

The selection of the acceptable risk and the appropriate seismic scenario or scenarios should
combine:

1. the level of detail of the seismic hazard (microzonation study),

2. the will of central and local actors,
3. the available funds,
 4. the financial capability of the community and the country without neglecting the
epistemic and physical uncertainties involved in every path of the any earthquake risk
reduction policy.

SEISMIC HAZARD ANALYSIS

Hazard

- Natural or man-made phenomenon that has the potential to cause harm.

Seismic Hazard

Earthquakes generates

• Ground shaking
• Fault Rupture
• Soil Liquefaction

and is measured by

• Instrumental-
• Historical-
• Geological observations

Seismic Hazard is NOT Seismic Risk

Seismic Hazard
• Severity of ground motion at the site regardless of the consequences.

Seismic Risk
• Refers exclusively to the consequences to human life and property loss
resulting from the occurred hazard.

Seismic Hazard Analysis

- Seismic hazard is a broad term used in a general sense to refer to the potentially
damaging phenomena associated with earthquakes, such as ground shaking, liquefaction,
landslides, and tsunami. In the specific sense, seismic hazard is the likelihood, or
probability, of experiencing a specified intensity of any damaging phenomenon at a
particular site, or over a region, in some period of interest.
 - Considers a multitude of earthquake occurrences and ground motions, and produces an
integrated description of seismic hazard representing all events.

- Involves the quantitative estimation of ground shaking hazards at a particular area. And
any physical phenomenon, such as ground shaking or ground failure, which is associated
with an earthquake and that, may produce adverse effects on human activities.

- To evaluate the seismic hazards for a particular site or region, all possible sources of
seismic activity must be identified and their potential for generating future strong ground
motion evaluated. Identification of seismic sources requires some detective work;
nature‟s clues, some of which are obvious and others quite obscure, must be observed and
interpreted.

Seismic hazard analysis involves the quantitative estimation of ground shaking hazards at a
particular area. The most important factors affecting seismic hazard at a location are:

1. Earthquake magnitude - Magnitude is the most common measure of an earthquake's size.

It is a measure of the size of the earthquake source and is the same number no matter
where you are or what the shaking feels like.
2. The source-to-site distance - Much of the energy released by rupture along a fault takes
the form of stress waves. As stress waves travel away from the source of an earthquake,
they spread out and are partially absorbed by the materials they travel through. As a
result, the specific energy decreases with increasing distance from the source. The
distance between the source of an earthquake and particular site can be interpreted in
different ways.
3. Earthquake rate of occurrence (return period) - - A return period is an estimate of the
interval of time between earthquake. It is a statistical measurement denoting the average
recurrence interval over an extended period of time, and is usually required for risk
analysis
4. Duration of ground shaking - The duration of an earthquake is related to its magnitude
but not in a perfectly strict sense.

Two basic approaches to Seismic Hazard Analysis

1. Deterministic Seismic Hazard Analysis

2. Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis

Deterministic Seismic Hazard Analysis

- Involve the assumption of some scenario and the occurrence of an earthquake of a

particular size at a particular location for which ground motion characteristics are
 determined. The DSHA approach uses the known seismic sources sufficiently near the
site and available historical seismic and geological data to generate discrete, single-
valued events or models of ground motion at the site.

Deterministic Seismic Hazard Analysis Consists of four primary steps:

1. Identification and characterization of all sources

2. Selection of source-site distance parameter
3. Selection of “controlling earthquake”
4. Definition of hazard using controlling earthquake

Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis

- The most widely used approach for the determination of seismic design loads for
engineering structures. The use of probabilistic concept has allowed uncertainties in the
size, location, and rate of recurrence of earthquakes and in the variation of ground motion
characteristics with earthquake size and location to be explicitly considered for the
evaluation of seismic hazard. In addition, PSHA provides a frame work in which these
uncertainties can
-

Element of Probabilistic Hazard Methodology

Constituent Models of the Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Methodology

1. Seismic sources
Definitions of these sources are based on interpretations of available geological,
geophysical, and seismological data with respect to earthquake mechanisms and source
structures that are likely to be common within specific geographic regions
2. Earthquake recurrence frequency
Earthquake recurrence frequency is based largely on statistical analyses of the historical
record of earthquakes for all but the most tectonically active areas of the world where
detailed paleoseismic studies of active faults have been performed.
3. Ground motion attenuation
Empirical ground motion attenuation relationships are widely used to establish the
amplitude of earthquake ground motion at a site of interest
4. Ground motion occurrence probability at a site
The estimation of the probability of exceeding some amplitude of shaking at a site in
some period of interest requires that a probability distribution of the ground motion
amplitudes be assumed.

Advantages of Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis

1. Integrates over all possible earthquake occurrences and ground motions to calculate a
combined probability of expedience that incorporates the relative frequencies of
occurrence of different earthquakes and ground-motion characteristics.
2. Modern Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis also considers multiple hypotheses on
input assumptions and thereby reflects the relative credibility of competing scientific
hypotheses.

Disadvantages of Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis

1. The concept of a "design earthquake" is lost; i.e., there is no single event (specified, in
simplest terms, by a magnitude and distance) that represents the earthquake threat.
2. Results directly from the integrative nature of Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis, and
it means that other characteristics of the ground motion (e.g., the duration or
nonstationarity) must be estimated in an ad hoc fashion if these characteristics are
important for analysis or design.
PURPOSE OF SEISMIC HAZARD ANALYSIS

1. Utilizes earthquake occurrence frequency and modern ground-motion attenuation

relationships directly.
2. Calculates seismic hazard from all earthquake sources.
3. To estimate the seismic hazard that can be used for seismic risk assessment.
4. Preparation of earthquake loadings regulation, for determining the earthquake loadings
for project requiring special studies, for areas where no odes exist or for various
earthquake risk management purposes.
5. Used to prepare macro or micro zoning maps of an area by estimating the strong-motion
parameters for a closely spaced grid of sites.
6. The purpose of SHA is to provide a scientifically consistent estimate of seismic hazard
for engineering design and other considerations.

Applicability of DSHA and PSHA

 DSHA involve the assumption of some scenario and the occurrence of an earthquake of a
particular size at a particular location for which ground motion characteristics are
determined.
 When applied to structures for which failure could have catastrophic consequences, such
as nuclear power plants and large dams, DSHA provides a straight forward framework
for evaluation of “worst-case” ground motions.
 However, it provides no information on the likelihood of occurrence of the controlling
earthquake, the likelihood of it occurring where it is assumed to occur, the level of
shaking that might be expected during a finite period of time (such as the useful lifetime
of a particular structure or facility), or the effects of uncertainties in the various steps
required to compute the resulting ground motion characteristics.
 PSHA allows uncertainties in the size, location, rate of recurrence, and effects of
earthquakes to be explicitly considered in the evaluation of seismic hazards. A PSHA
requires that uncertainties in earthquake location, size, recurrence, and ground shaking
effects be quantified.
 The accuracy of PSHA depends on the accuracy with which uncertainty in earthquake
size, location, recurrence, and effects can be characterized. Although models and
procedures for characterization of uncertainty of these parameters are available they may
be based on data collected over periods of time that, geologically, are very short.
 Model uncertainties can be incorporated into a PSHA by means a of a logic tree. A logic
tree allows the use of alternative models, each of which is assigned a weighting factor
related to the likelihood of that model being correct.