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Sustainability
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Resilience to Earthquake Hazard: Assessments and Frameworks
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Resilience to Earthquake Hazard: Assessments and Frameworks

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 May 2021) | Viewed by 10941

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Vojko Kilar

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Architecture, University of Ljubljana, Zoisova 12, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Interests: architectural technology; safety of buildings; earthquake engineering; sustainability design of quality living space; seismic protection of architectural heritage buildings; risk assessment of built environment

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, a lot of new research interest has been focused on studies of the impacts of Rare Incidents with Strong Consequences for cities and urban systems. The risk assessment studies try to predict the response of urban systems to natural hazards and to evaluate their preparedness to sustain, respond and recover with the aid of different parameters and tools. In order to minimize the impact of natural hazards, the society has to be appropriately organized and prepared in advance in order to restore the required minimal functionality as soon after the event as possible. Such a society is called resilient, and should be assessed interdisciplinarily with the aid of urbanists, architects, engineers and developers from different fields. Experience obtained in recent extreme events (in particular, earthquakes and floods) has revealed that both the level of preparedness and the response of affected cities were insufficiently high, whereas the recovery process was long and expensive. For this reason, improved pre-disaster mitigation actions, as well as smart and strategic urban planning in threatened areas, is essential. It has been noted that the general public is not adequately informed about the possible consequence of a stronger earthquake, which might damage buildings, cut transport lines for medical help and food supply, and cause fires and gas explosions, resulting in long lasting damage which might take up to a decade to overcome. The so called recovery time can, however, be drastically shortened if the relevant studies and risk scenarios are studied before and if the society has taken at least the minimal necessary precaution measures in time.

This Special Issue is gathering the contributions dealing with risk studies of cities and urban systems in the case of earthquake treatment in earthquake prone regions. It tries to collect the existing knowledge and gather new research ideas to develop the tools which enable the quantification of the most needed measures which could deal with realistic risk assessment from architectural, urban, engineering, technical, economic or social points of view. Especially welcomed are papers which try to determine how to best assess the resilience of urban systems, taking into account all of their components, i.e., both the physical components and the social components, as well as the dynamic interactions between them.

Prof. Dr. Vojko Kilar
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Earthquake hazard assesment
  • Urban systems
  • Community disaster resilience
  • Complex network approach
  • Natural disasters
  • Open urban space

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 6298 KiB  
Article
Simulating Historical Earthquakes in Existing Cities for Fostering Design of Resilient and Sustainable Communities: The Ljubljana Case
by Anže Babič, Matjaž Dolšek and Jure Žižmond
Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 7624; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13147624 - 8 Jul 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3150
Abstract
The seismic exposure of urban areas today is much higher than centuries ago. The 2020 Zagreb earthquake demonstrated that European cities are vulnerable even to moderate earthquakes, a fact that has been known to earthquake-engineering experts for decades. However, alerting decision-makers to the [...] Read more.
The seismic exposure of urban areas today is much higher than centuries ago. The 2020 Zagreb earthquake demonstrated that European cities are vulnerable even to moderate earthquakes, a fact that has been known to earthquake-engineering experts for decades. However, alerting decision-makers to the seismic risk issue is very challenging, even when they are aware of historical earthquakes that caused natural catastrophes in the areas of their jurisdiction. To help solve the issue, we introduce a scenario-based risk assessment methodology and demonstrate the consequences of the 1895 Ljubljana earthquake on the existing building stock. We show that a 6.2 magnitude earthquake with an epicentre 5 km north of Ljubljana would cause many deaths and severe damage to the building stock, which would likely lead to direct economic losses higher than 15% of the GDP of the Republic of Slovenia. Such an event would be catastrophic not only for the community directly affected by the earthquake but for the entire country. We have disseminated this information over the course of a year together in addition to formulating a plan for enhancing the community seismic resilience in Slovenia. Hopefully, local decision-makers will act according to their jurisdiction in Slovenia and persuade decision-makers across Europe to update the built environment renovation policy at the European level. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Resilience to Earthquake Hazard: Assessments and Frameworks)
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22 pages, 9634 KiB  
Article
Parametric Study of Local Site Response for Bedrock Ground Motion to Earthquake in Phuentsholing, Bhutan
by Karma Tempa, Raju Sarkar, Abhirup Dikshit, Biswajeet Pradhan, Armando Lucio Simonelli, Saroj Acharya and Abdullah M. Alamri
Sustainability 2020, 12(13), 5273; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12135273 - 29 Jun 2020
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3601
Abstract
Earthquakes, when it comes to natural calamities, are characteristically devastating and pose serious threats to buildings in urban areas. Out of multiple seismic regions in the Himalayas, Bhutan Himalaya is one that reigns prominent. Bhutan has seen several moderate-sized earthquakes in the past [...] Read more.
Earthquakes, when it comes to natural calamities, are characteristically devastating and pose serious threats to buildings in urban areas. Out of multiple seismic regions in the Himalayas, Bhutan Himalaya is one that reigns prominent. Bhutan has seen several moderate-sized earthquakes in the past century and various recent works show that a major earthquake like the 2015 Nepal earthquake is impending. The southwestern city of Bhutan, Phuentsholing is one of the most populated regions in the country and the present study aims to explore the area using geophysical methods (Multispectral Analysis of Surface Waves (MASW)) for understanding possibilities pertaining to infrastructural development. The work involved a geophysical study on eight different sites in the study region which fall under the local area plan of Phuentsholing City. The geophysical study helps to discern shear wave velocity which indicates the soil profile of a region along with possible seismic hazard during an earthquake event, essential for understanding the withstanding power of the infrastructure foundation. The acquired shear wave velocity by MASW indicates visco-elastic soil profile down to a depth of 22.2 m, and it ranged from 350 to 600 m/s. A site response analysis to understand the correlation of bedrock rigidness to the corresponding depth was conducted using EERA (Equivalent-linear Earthquake Site Response Analysis) software. The amplification factors are presented for each site and maximum amplification factors are highlighted. These results have led to a clear indication of how the bedrock characteristics influence the surface ground motion parameters for the corresponding structure period. The results infer that the future constructional activity in the city should not be limited to two- to five-story buildings as per present practice. Apart from it, a parametric study was initiated to uncover whatever effects rigid bedrock has upon hazard parameters for various depths of soil profile up to 30 m, 40 m, 60 m, 80 m, 100 m, 120 m, 140 m, 160 m, 180 m and 200 m from the ground surface. The overriding purpose of doing said parametric study is centered upon helping the stack holders who can use the data for future development. Such a study is the first of its kind for the Bhutan region, which suffers from the unavailability of national seismic code, and this is a preliminary step towards achieving it. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Resilience to Earthquake Hazard: Assessments and Frameworks)
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20 pages, 6616 KiB  
Article
Improved Hydraulic Simulation of Valve Layout Effects on Post-Earthquake Restoration of a Water Distribution Network
by Jeongwook Choi and Doosun Kang
Sustainability 2020, 12(8), 3492; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12083492 - 24 Apr 2020
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2751
Abstract
To restore water pipes damaged by earthquakes, it is common to block the water flow by closing the associated shut-off valves. In this process, water supply suspension in the area connected to the isolated pipes is inevitable, which decreases the serviceability of the [...] Read more.
To restore water pipes damaged by earthquakes, it is common to block the water flow by closing the associated shut-off valves. In this process, water supply suspension in the area connected to the isolated pipes is inevitable, which decreases the serviceability of the water distribution network (WDN). In this study, we identified the impact of valve layout (i.e., number and location) on system serviceability during a seismic damage restoration process. By conducting a pressure-driven-analysis (PDA) using EPANET 3.0, a more realistic hydraulic analysis could be carried out under the seismically damaged condition. Furthermore, by considering the valve-controlled segment in the hydraulic simulation, a more realistic water suspension area was determined, and efficient seismic damage restoration strategies were identified. The developed model was implemented on a WDN to demonstrate the effect of valve layout on the post-earthquake restoration process. Finally, effective restoration strategies were suggested for the application network. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Resilience to Earthquake Hazard: Assessments and Frameworks)
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