Abstract

The latest improvements in geo-informatics offer new opportunities in a wide range of territorial and environmental applications. In this general framework, a relevant issue is represented by earthquake early warning and emergency management. This research work presents the investigation and development of a simple and innovative geospatial methodology and related collaborative open source geospatial tools for predicting and mapping the vulnerability to seismic hazard in order to support the response planning to disastrous events. The proposed geospatial methodology and tools have been integrated into an open source collaborative GIS system, designed and developed as an integrated component of an earthquake early warning and emergency management system.

Highlights

  • In the past few years, the human population has experienced a series of natural disasters such as hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes (see, for example Aquila (IT) earthquake in 2009, Tohoku (Japan) tsunami in 2011, Turkey earthquake in 2011, etc.), floods, fires, landslides among others, that have in many cases overwhelmed the responding and recovering capacities

  • Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and topographic profiles of the interest area allow identifying depressions covered by recently formed sediments, which are related to relatively higher groundwater surface

  • Aggregated data related to buildings such as built-up density, structural typology (2 classes: Masonry or Reinforced Concrete), age of construction (7 classes), number of storeys (4 classes), that can be derived by buildings datasets by using geo-processing and spatial analysis tools, can be attributed to census sections as spatial unit

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Summary

Introduction

In the past few years, the human population has experienced a series of natural disasters such as hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes (see, for example Aquila (IT) earthquake in 2009, Tohoku (Japan) tsunami in 2011, Turkey earthquake in 2011, etc.), floods, fires, landslides among others, that have in many cases overwhelmed the responding and recovering capacities. We have designed and developed a web-oriented GIS application for predicting and mapping seismic vulnerability, assessing potential impacts of possible seismic events and to support the disaster response planning This GIS application has been designed as an integrated component of the data-processing unit of the earthquake early warning system developed in the national SIT_MEW Project The proposed GIS subsystem for earthquake EWSs includes a geospatial database system; a local GIS application for predicting and mapping the seismic hazard vulnerability of regional areas; a WebGIS module for collecting, synthesizing and sharing the geo-information among private and public stakeholders, emergency managers and common citizens involved in disaster response [22]

The Study Case
The Methodology
Mapping Structures Vulnerability
Mapping Expected Damage Scenarios
The WebGIS System
The Post-Event Management
Conclusions and Future Developments
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