DatA ESPerT · Database Analysis for Evaluation of Seismic Performance Assessment Tools

Database Analysis for Evaluation of Seismic Performance Assessment Tools

The modern European society is a complex human system. Most of our everyday activities require the satisfaction of necessary initial conditions to which we often do not think about. Unpredictable events, as earthquakes, pose a serious threat to the delicate equilibrium of our way of living. An example is represented by the disastrous Emilia-Romagna seismic sequence. Emilia-Romagna is a modern and productive Italian region, that in May 2012 was struck by a series of medium-high intensity earthquakes. As a consequence, there were 28 casualties and circa 300 people injured. Furthermore, vast damage was provoked to structures, infrastructures, cultural heritage and production systems. The total assessed economic loss in the region was up to EUR 13.2 billion, of which 2.4 billion in some way related to business activities. The destruction of production systems provoked a slowdown in the national economy. In order to face the emergency and distribute financial compensations, the local public authority, Regione Emilia-Romagna (R E-R) started a funding programme to help both private citizens and business owners. Regarding the latter, a programme so-called SFINGE was launched, and a dedicated database was created. Project DatA ESPerT (DE) is built upon such database, thanks to the collaboration of RWTH and R E-R. The issue the experienced researcher (ExR) has to face is about improving the understanding of socio-economic consequence of earthquakes, starting from the data they generate. The final aim of this project is to provide designers, stakeholders and public officials, with modern, data-based, consequence assessment tools they can use in strategic decision making. The DE scientific initiative was defined within the framework of an existing theoretical methodology so-called “Performance Based Earthquake Engineering” (PBEE). The main problem of PBEE is that, despite the rigorous mathematical framework upon which is built, there is a chronic lack of empirical data to validate and test the developed models. DE, as a project proposal, was written with this issue in mind. The importance of project DE for society is directly proportional to the relevance, for both Italy and Europe, of disastrous seismic events that periodically strike the peninsula. In the last 25 years alone, at least 5 disastrous seismic events struck Italy, provoking immense human and economic impact: Hundreds of casualties, thousands of injured people, and billions of euro in losses. On one hand, earthquakes can’t be predicted nor avoided; on other hand, seismic protection of buildings requires up-to-date, calibrated, consequence assessment models, so to properly and rationally allocate financial resources. DE is aimed at letting decision makers and stakeholders know more about the seismic economic consequence, thus improving the strategies for resources allocation in seismic retrofitting.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union