Geomatics and Geo-Information in Earthquake Studies

Dear Colleagues,

In the past decade, large-scale earthquakes and tsunamis have struck major populated areas and produced heavy casualties and losses in many countries.

Geomatics methodologies and GIS-based hazard and risk analysis can be powerful tools to inform and support the development of effective disaster mitigation strategies, to reduce the impact of future earthquakes, and to assist early recovery and reconstruction activities.

Advances in geomatics and geospatial technologies are envisaged for extracting the most suitable information to assess seismic hazard and the seismic vulnerability of structures and infrastructures from the currently available large set of geographical data, including remote sensing imagery from satellites. Lessons learned from recent major earthquakes are also important to understand the mechanisms of ground shakings and structural damage.

GIS (Geographic Information Systems) have great potentialities for characterizing spatial patterns of natural and built environments. Within GIS, the location and inventory of buildings and infrastructures as well as their constructive features can be overlaid with seismic hazard maps (describing ground conditions, seismic shaking, amplification and co-seismic effects, etc.), as well as with information related to the resident communities, thus allowing investigation of the mechanisms that lead to physical damages to structures and infrastructures, and to social and economic impacts and losses in the short- and long-term. Information stored and processed via GIS can also be effective for deriving lessons learned.

DSSs (decision support systems), incorporating GIS-based analysis, are essential for the development of spatial analysis to support risk mitigation and risk management decision-making processes, but their studies have rarely been summarized. In order to concentrate the knowledge and experiences accumulated thus far, we would like to invite you to submit articles about your recent work. The topics of interest include but are not limited to the following keywords.

Dr. Christian Bignami
Dr. Hiroyuki Miura
Dr. Maurizio Pollino
Dr. Sonia Giovinazzi
Guest Editors

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