Integrating Building- and Site-Specific and Generic Fragility Curves into Seismic Risk Assessment: A PRISMA-Based Analysis of Methodologies and Applications
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for Authorsvery good presentation for risk assessment and fragility curves. One question and comment :
through shake maps near a fault we can find acceleration curves and through fragility curves we can find and forecast damage into a city or a big area. So after a strong earthquake we can forecast immediately the red areas of damage and take measures to prevent collapse of structures. Have you any example of this shake map??
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe work presented by the authors provides a very detailed and well-structured state of the art on the subject. The authors analyze the topic in a simple and clear way. The results obtained from reading and classification allow researchers to have a very solid and structured point on the state of the art according to three points of view. However, the bibliographic research analyzes the last 10 years of the topic, leaving out some scientific works that have constituted the references for the topic in question. Another aspect not considered are the manuals, books and guidelines that in some cases constitute the basis of some procedures present in the literature and applied to real cases. This aspect could be better addressed in the introduction instead of using texts from recent years as bibliographic references.
Since the authors are dealing with a structured state of the art, they could make this aspect more clearly perceived in the title of the work and in the abstract and introduction.
The methodological part is clear and also the critical reading part based on the three questions of the methodological part is well structured and the graphic part and the tables are a support for reading.
The work for the reviewer is accepted, however it is recommended to make the limited changes mentioned above, in particular to expand the introduction with the basic references of this topic.
It is recommended to reread and pay attention to the bibliographical references on specific topics, example line 90-91 page 2 reference 42 does not refer to steel structures.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsFriday, October 11, 2024
Ref.: Manuscript titled: "Integrating Building-and-Site-Specific and Generic Fragility Curves into Seismic Risk Assessment: A PRISMA-Based Analysis of Methodologies and Applications"
Dear authors,
The manuscript intends to address three research questions:
1. "How building-and-site-specific fragility curves, developed through PSHA based record selection for generic SDoF systems, enhance seismic risk assessments compared to generic fragility approaches."?
2. What are the inherent benefits of generic fragility curves in large-scale seismic risk assessments?
3. How practitioners balance the simplicity and broader applicability of generic fragility curves with the need for precise risk assessments in critical infrastructure design?
The manuscript reveals that (1) site-specific fragility curves offer an accurate representation of seismic demand on structures, enabling effective priority setting of mitigation alternatives. It further explores that (2) generic fragility curves provide rapid, economic evaluations across broad areas, and are useful in standardizing seismic risk assessments for effective emergency response and policy making. The third research question revels that (3) practitioners adopt an integrated approach combining both generic and building-site-specific assessment strategies, allowing for efficient management of seismic risks across large networks of infrastructure. The topic justifies research however the contribution of the manuscript to state-of-the-art is insufficient. It is needed to add a framework of Fragility Curves implementation in light of this review findings with an example or case study.
Following are remarks and suggestions to improve the scientific credibility of the manuscript:
1. The literature review encompasses five data bases, however major engineering data bases are missing: Scopus and Engineering Index. Consider adding at least one of these.
2. The literature revies misses significant recent publications, please consider some or all of the followig ((Ghods and Rofooei 2023; Sriwastav 2022; Urlainis et al. 2024; Bernardo et al. 2022; Kharazian et al. 2021; Baltzopoulos et al. 2021; Shastri et al. 2023; Crisci et al. 2024; Lifshitz Sherzer et al. 2024; Urlainis et al. 2015; Ji et al. 2021).
3. Please provide a thought-provoking discussion of the research with a fragility curve implementation framework derived from this discussion.
4. Consider adding a case study/Example demonstrating the proposed framework.
Good Luck!
Baltzopoulos, G., Grella, A., and Iervolino, I. (2021). "Seismic reliability implied by behavior‐factor‐based design." Earthq Engng Struct Dyn, 50(15), 4076.
Bernardo, V. M. S., Campos Costa, A. P. D. N., Candeias, P. J. D. O. X., Da Costa, A. G., Marques, A. I. M., and Carvalho, A. R. (2022). "Ambient vibration testing and seismic fragility analysis of masonry building aggregates." Bull Earthquake Eng, 20(10), 5047.
Crisci, G., Gentile, R., Ceroni, F., Galasso, C., and Lignola, G. P. (2024). "Seismic vulnerability assessment of RC deck-stiffened arch bridges." Engineering Structures, 317.
Ghods, B., and Rofooei, F. R. (2023). "Site dependent response estimation by holistic record selection and bagging algorithm." Journal of Building Engineering, 68.
Ji, T., Wei, H., Shohet, I. M., and Xiong, F. (2021). "Risk-based resilience concentration assessment of community to seismic hazards." Nat Hazards, 108(2), 1731.
Kharazian, A., Molina, S., Galiana-Merino, J. J., and Agea-Medina, N. (2021). "Risk-targeted hazard maps for Spain." Bull Earthquake Eng, 19(13), 5369.
Lifshitz Sherzer, G., Urlainis, A., Moyal, S., and Shohet, I. M. (2024). "Seismic Resilience in Critical Infrastructures: A Power Station Preparedness Case Study." Applied Sciences, 14(9),.
Shastri, R., Singh, Y., and Das, J. (2023). "Risk Targeted Seismic Hazard Assessment in Uttarakhand Himalayas." Springer Nature Singapore, 247.
Sriwastav, R. K. (2022). "Seismic vulnerability assessment of RC high-rise building considering soil–structure interaction effects." Asian J Civ Eng, 23(4), 585.
Urlainis, A., Lifshitz Sherzer, G., and Shohet, I. M. (2024). "Multi-Scale Integrated Corrosion-Adjusted Seismic Fragility Framework for Critical Infrastructure Resilience." Applied Sciences, 14(19),.
Urlainis, A., Shohet, I. M., and Levy, R. (2015). "Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Oil and Gas Infrastructures for Seismic Extreme Events." Procedia Engineering, 123 590.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Please see minor corrections and remarks in the attached file.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors conducted a systematic literature review of Building-and-Site-Specific and Generic Fragility Curves into Seismic Risk Assessment using PRISMA approach. The article is interesting and can be accepted for publication after addressing the following suggestions.
1. To enhance the literature review, consider including more recent studies.
2. Provide more detailed explanations on the criteria for selecting studies in the review, including how the final set of studies was narrowed down from the initial set.
3. The discussion of limitations could be expanded. For example, the authors should discuss any challenges related to the reproducibility of the results or the generalizability.
4. Consider expanding the discussion on practical implications.
5. What were the selection criteria
6. The PRISMA 2020 checklist (for both abstract and manuscript) should be provided.
7. The background of the PRISMA should be enriched. The given article must be helpful.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.istruc.2023.06.131
8. Discussion part should be provided.
9. Research limitations, contribution to the body of knowledge, and future direction should be provided.
10. The conclusion section should be enriched, which highlights only the main findings. The first paragraph of the conclusion is well explained in the methods section, which can be removed.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe authors need to address the given comments.
Thanks
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors,
Thank you for providing the revised version of the manuscript, with careful response to the remarks.
The quality and comprehensiveness of the manuscript has been significantly improved!
Please find attached the draft with a few minor linguistic modification.
Good Luck in your future research.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Please see a few corrections in the attachment.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors addressed all the suggestions.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsA quality research worthy of merit.
Firstly, an obvious dispute arises which is about the conclusion which prefers generic approach instead of site specific approach for the reason of cost involved. This reason alone demands a scientific justification by a proper cost effectiveness analysis.
Secondly it also follows that the title should be changed to reflect the bias, such as , a cost effectiveness analysis of generic versus site specific dataset.
Thirdly, besides cost variable which demands a justification, the authors are requested to re-examine their conclusion by addressing the recent rapid weather deterioration probably caused by global climate change, and the impacts it has over the predictability and accuracy using generic dataset.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsSince this paper is reviewing the published papers, therefore, the first and major comment is that the authors missed so many recent studies, I am listing few of them, I suggest authors complete the review. In the revised version if the detailed review was fine, I will provide the detailed comment to improve the quality.
https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/PPSCFX.SCENG-1286
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352012421006822
https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29SC.1943-5576.0000545
https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29SC.1943-5576.0000708
https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29SC.1943-5576.0000543
https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29SC.1943-5576.0000637
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10518-019-00743-9
https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29SC.1943-5576.0000702
https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/PPSCFX.SCENG-1317
https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29SC.1943-5576.0000605
https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29SC.1943-5576.0000641
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper
“Integrating Building-and-Site-Specific and Generic Fragility Curves into Seismic Risk Assessment: A PRISMA-Based Analysis of Methodologies and Applications”,
By Camayang et al.,
Reports a review of the use of fragility curves in seismic risk assessment.
The paper further distinguishes between two types of fragility curves: building-and-site-specific curves and generic curves.
The review employs the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methodology to systematically examine these two types of fragility curves in seismic risk assessment.
Overall, the content of the paper is appreciable and of potential interest to the readers of CivilEng Journal.
However, the paper is limited in its current form by some issues, concerning both its content and its format. These should be addressed before acceptance:
1. For being a systematic review, especially on a vast topic such as Fragility Curves for Seismic Risk Assessment, n = 252 identified records are very few. As a researcher in Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, this Reviewer would expect many more documents in the published literature on this topic.
2. Related to the above remark, some examples of missing documents include https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2024.108907 among many others.
3. Table 1 shows that the vast majority of contributions were found on ResearchGate, which can be one of the reasons many works may have been left out. In fact, some Authors do not have ResearchGate profiles. The Scopus dataset should be included.
4. The equations (e.g. (1) and (2)) are not described in enough detail. As of the current version, they are just provided with no description of the parameters, variables, or even the rationale behind them.
5. Please do not cluster references together. For instance page 2 line 73: [7,19-20,21]. In this way, it is not clear what is the specific contribution of each paper
6. With only three figures, the paper lacks graphical content.
7. Figure 3: do the Authors have permission to reproduce the plots from Ref [42]?
8. Section 2.3 it is not clear if (and why) the review was limited to civil buildings only. From the second paragraph, it seems like bridges, highways, and dams were purposefully left out. Why so? The motivations should be more clearly stated.
9. Many DOIs are missing in the referenced documents, please complete accurately your Reference List.
10. Excluding the Reference List (which, as mentioned above, is large but relatively limited for a Review Paper on such a vast topic), the paper is only 12 pages long, which is quite short for a full journal paper.
11. Related to the previous remark, the context for Seismic Analysis in civil buildings should be discussed in more detail, perhaps referring to recent works on the topic, such as https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16144908
12. Conversely, the Conclusions section is lengthy and should be more synthetic in its recalling of the key takeaways.
13. The Author Contributions section at the end of the paper is not filled.
14. Page 6 line 247 and page 9 line 301, the cross-references are not working (“Error! Reference source not found.”)
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe English needs to be properly revised. There are several grammar mistakes and typos (e.g. page 4 lines 145-148 (“The publications of all the databases searches resulted to 252 where 12 *were* removed due to duplication, 62 *were* excluded because *they analyse* bridges, highways, dams, flooding, liquefaction & tsunami, and 59 *were* not retrieved.
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe queries have not been satisfactorily explained or answered.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe revised version certainly improved and contains good number of references. The only issue I see that there are mass citations and I am sure multiple references cited together are not dealing the same idea. Please keep maximum two references at max and explain other references that readers can learn from the literature.
Still there are relevant studies are missing I added few (https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/PPSCFX.SCENG-1286; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352012421006822; https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29SC.1943-5576.0000543; https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/4/1230; https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29SC.1943-5576.0000708) but I think more can be found.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis Reviewer is not truly convinced by some of the responses from the Authors. More in details:
Comments 1, 2, 11 and elsewhere: there are two points to be considered here:
(1) not all the papers in the reference list should be the ones following the selection criteria
(2) nevertheless there are some clear missing articles
Related to (1), papers explaining related concepts can be added to the text for context, even if they don’t fall inside the criteria for the subgroup of references actually used for the review of the state-of-the-art; e.g. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16144908
Related to (2), it is not clear which selection criteria are not satisfied for instance by https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2024.108907
Comment 3: the response is totally not satisfactory. Google Scholar is a much more credited source than ResearchGate. Scopus or Web of Science would be even better. ResearchGate acts primarily as a sector specific social network, not as an official repository or specialised search engine.
Comment 5 was not about formatting (which indeed was also unusual), it was about putting four references at the same point. This does not allow to understand how each one of them individually contributes to the statement made in the text there.
Furthermore, in the highlighted modified version, the issue (even just the technical one) does not seem to have been solved.
Comment 10: This Reviewer’s opinion was, and still is, that the paper is too short and that many aspects, especially regarding the context of this research, are (deliberately or not) left out and they shouldn’t.
Comment 14: in the highlighted modified version, the technical issue does not seem to have been solved (see page 6 line 247).
For all these reasons, this Reviewer’s opinion is that the Authors did not address sufficiently well the aforementioned comments. Hence, another round of peer-reviewed modifications is deemed necessary.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe English can be further revised and improved.
Author Response
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Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAlthough the paper can be improved but I see that authors are tired of corrections and therefore, I can not push them to do more. I accept the paper.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComment 1: are Figure 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 AI-generated? In this case, they should be replaced with human-made drawings.
Comment 2. Related to the same images, the writings are often too small and not easily readable.
Comment 3: the points in Figure 5.c are not clearly visible in light grey over the white background.
Comment 4: the paper overall needs a grammar double-check and proofreading, possibly by a native speaker or a professional.
Comments on the Quality of English Languagethe English can be improved
