Abstract
The main purpose of this study is to assess seismic risk and present earthquake loss scenarios for the city of Imzouren, in northern Morocco. An empirical approach was chosen to assess the seismic vulnerability of the existing buildings, using the Vulnerability Index Method (RISK-UE), and considering two earthquake scenarios (deterministic and probabilistic). Special concern was given to the seismic vulnerability in Imzouren since the 2004 earthquake (24 February, mw = 6.4) that struck the region and caused substantial damage. A site investigation was conducted in the city targeting more than 3000 residential buildings, which had been closely examined and catalogued to assess their seismic vulnerability. The results of the seismic risk assessment in the city are represented through damage to the buildings, harm to the population and economic loss. Generally, the results obtained from the deterministic approach are in agreement with the damage caused by the 2004 earthquake.
Highlights
There are numerous uncertainties in the process of obtaining earthquake loss scenarios which are mainly related to either the seismic source or the building inventory [1]
A deterministic scenario may be the better approach for a city in a seismic zone; we have considered a probabilistic scenario to compare the differences between the two damage loss scenarios
Seismic risk in the city of Imzouren was assessed with an empirical approach based on site investigations and vulnerability index scoring
Summary
There are numerous uncertainties in the process of obtaining earthquake loss scenarios which are mainly related to either the seismic source or the building inventory [1]. Several methods have provided credible results while taking into account these uncertainties, such as performance-based methods and reliability-based design approaches [2,3,4]. Concerning the source location, earthquake scenarios can rarely be associated with certainty to the rupture of well-identified faults, since in the past, numerous destructive earthquakes occurred on blind faults or on offshore faults. In case the source location is uncertain, a probabilistic scenario may arguably be preferable to a deterministic one [5]. If the site location is near a seismic source, first order rupture effects on ground motion are expected, which are difficult to assess in probabilistic hazards analysis. The second obstacle is the difficulty of categorizing the built environment into well-defined typologies and construction periods
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