Abstract

A comprehensive and probabilistic seismic risk assessment has been performed for the buildings of Lorca, the most affected city in the region of Murcia, Spain, after the May 2011 earthquake. Seismic hazard is represented through a set of stochastic scenarios that allow accounting for small, moderate and extreme events in the future losses, also through spectral transfer functions the dynamic soil response has been considered. A building by building resolution level database has been used allowing the disaggregation of risk results in several categories besides allowing the generation of risk maps to visualize the geographical distribution of the future losses. For each of the identified building classes a vulnerability function has been assigned to determine the expected losses for different acceleration levels. Risk results have been obtained in terms of the loss exceedance curve from where other probabilistic risk metrics such as the average annual loss and the probable maximum loss can be derived. Risk results are useful for the decision-makers in the fields of emergency planning, existent building retrofitting schemes and financial protection through traditional insurance and reinsurance schemes or with alternative risk transfer instruments.

Abstract

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.