Developing Resiliency Measures to Reduce Seismic Hazard Impact in the Central United States

Abstract

When a damaging seismic event occurs in an area, fatalities and injuries happen; damage to building structures and infrastructure systems occurs resulting in short-term and long-term economic losses and disruptions to societal systems. Given a particular damaging seismic event, the consequences of the event on a community depend on several factors: primary among them are the vulnerabilities of physical and socioeconomic systems, and exposure to the damaging seismic event. The seismic risk to a community is a function of hazard, vulnerability, and consequences. The impact on the community due to a damaging seismic event is shown in Figure 10-1. The author is of the opinion that the total seismic risk comprises of technical, economic and societal components. Thus, the seismic hazard impact reduction needs a community systems-level approach that necessarily includes interaction of technical systems, economic systems, and societal systems within the constraints of existing organizational systems. In the central US, the most significant area of concern is the New Madrid Seismic Zone (TMSZ) which directly impacts eight adjoining states. However, the area in the Central US which could be impacted due to a major earthquake is much broader (Figure 10-5). Another important factor to consider is that the impact of an earthquake in NMSZ is different than that in the Western US due to significant differences in geology of the two areas. To minimize the impact of a damaging earthquake, community resiliency must be developed. While some measures of resiliency in physical systems can be quantified, resiliency measures for socio-economic systems are difficult to quantify. Qualitative measures are most appropriate to describe the overall community resiliency. Overall community resiliency can be compared across various regions to deploy resources effectively. This paper provides conceptual framework for developing resiliency measures.