Abstract
In May 2012 a seismic sequence occurred in Northern Italy that was characterized by two main shocks with a magnitude range between 5.5 and 6. These shocks represent a good case study by which to quantify the monetary losses caused by a moderate earthquake in a densely populated and economically well-developed area. The loss estimation accounts for damage to residential buildings, and considers the full effect of all the seismic aftershock events that lasted for nearly a month. The building damage estimation is based on the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS-98) definitions, which depict the effects of an earthquake on built-up areas in terms of observed intensities. Input data sources are the residential building census provided by Istituto Nazionale di Statistica—the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT)—and the official market value of real estate assets, obtained from the Osservatorio del Mercato Immobiliare—the Real Estate Market Observatory (OMI). These data make it possible to quantify the economic losses due to earthquakes, an economic indicator updated yearly. The proposed multidisciplinary method takes advantage of seismic, engineering, and economic data sets, and is able to provide a reasonable after the event losses scenario. Data are not gathered for each single building and the intensity values are not a simple hazard indicator, but, notwithstanding its coarseness, this method ensures both robust and reproducible results. As the local property value is available throughout the Italian territory, the present loss assessment can be effortlessly repeated for any area, and may be quickly reproduced in case of future events, or used for predictive economic estimations.
Highlights
Seismic risk awareness has considerably increased in Italy, especially after the latest earthquakes (2009, 2012, and 2016) that have caused tragic human and economic losses
Due to the growing concentration of economic assets and people located in urban areas that are exposed to seismic hazard, the risk and the related economic loss caused by their occurrence are becoming increasingly significant
This study presents a viable procedure for assessing the economic loss suffered by the municipalities in a welldeveloped urban area hit by a seismic event of moderate magnitude by using freely available data as input
Summary
Seismic risk awareness has considerably increased in Italy, especially after the latest earthquakes (2009, 2012, and 2016) that have caused tragic human and economic losses. There are methods that use macroseismic intensity data as the major input, which initially were developed during a series of national research projects aimed at generating earthquake risk scenarios (Giovinazzi and Lagomarsino 2004; Bernardini et al 2008; Meroni et al 2008a, b) These methods differ in their definition of building vulnerability, but all are based on the damage definitions of the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS-98) developed by Grunthal (1998). Methods based on macroseismic intensity data provide statistically reliable results only when applied to large areas and to a large buildings stock These methods have to cope with the extreme variability of the response of existing buildings to seismic loads, often influenced by site-specific effects. It is possible to transpose the damage degrees into levels of reduction of functionality (total or partial) and collapse (partial or total), and associate an economic value that quantifies the loss
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