SEISIMPACT-THES: DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND APPLICATION OF AN INFORMATION SYSTEM TO ASSESS THE VULNERABILITY TO EARTHQUAKE HAZARD OF THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT OF THE PREFECTURE OF THESSALONIKI

The scope of the present work is to organize into a digital form and evaluate the excellent record of reported damages, connected to the occurrence of the 1978 Thessaloniki earthquake (M 6.5). For this purpose an advanced Information System with open architecture is under development. The system will include:• A properly designed database.• A Geographic Information System containing all the above data (after digitization and corrections) enriched with more recent data, as well as topographic, geological and geophysical data of the region (metropolitan area of Thessalonica).• A model system of accessing the above via web and mobile devices.The information system is designed with an open architecture so it can be easily adapted for use with similar data from other regions, and/or with other geographically distributed information with commercial importance. The data to be collected, stored and used will be described using XML language to facilitate communication among different applications and for flexible expansion to incorporate any new data types that have to be described and stored in the database. The use of XML is considered ideal both for back-end application logic, and as a platform for application and platforms integration. More specifically regarding the latter, methodologies will be developed for application integration based on XML-RPC and SOAP, which will enable flexible exchange of data with external systems and applications. The application will be available through the Internet so the interface of the application will be depicted through a Web Browser, using a desktop PC, a laptop, or - with some restrictions - a PDA.