Developing a holistic model for earthquake risk assessment and disaster management interventions in urban fabrics

The main scope of this study is to develop a holistic model for assessing earthquake risk and determining priorities for risk reduction and management in urban fabrics. The developed model estimates the earthquake risk at each urban zone based on hazard, vulnerability and response capacity. Additionally, a new indicator called Integrated Earthquake Safety Index, IESI is introduced to address the safety level of urban fabrics in relation to earthquakes and assess the impacts of applicable interventions on risk. The proposed model is then applied in two districts of Tehran, having different physical and socio-economic characteristics, to evaluate the safety level for earthquakes. For this purpose, the contributing elements in hazard, vulnerability and response capacity have been assessed based on local conditions and the IESI is determined for each urban zone. In addition, the applicability of the model to address potential improvement measures has also been evaluated. The results show that IESI can be improved by different short to long-term interventions; while amongst short-term measures, promoting community based disaster management activities as well as developing search and rescue bases may increase safety level significantly in the selected districts. The proposed model is applicable for all seismic prone urban fabrics, while its parameters should be determined based on local conditions. Furthermore, the model can be utilized by disaster management authorities as well as city planners to prioritize short to long-term earthquake risk reduction and management interventions and to allocate available resources more effectively in order to reduce earthquake damage and casualties.