scholarly journals Applying Simulated Seismic Damage Scenarios in the Volcanic Region of Mount Etna (Sicily): A Case-Study From the MW 4.9, 2018 Earthquake

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Pessina ◽  
Fabrizio Meroni ◽  
Raffaele Azzaro ◽  
Salvatore D’Amico

An application for a quick earthquake damage scenario assessment is here presented as a potential tool for planning prevention actions or managing seismic emergencies in the volcanic region of Mt. Etna (Italy). As case-study, we considered the December 26, 2018 earthquake that, with a magnitude MW 4.9, represents the largest event occurring in the area during the last 70 years. The QUEST working group (the INGV macroseismic team) carried out a detailed survey in the damage area, collecting data on the number of buildings in the different vulnerability classes and related damage, with the aim to assign intensity. The maximum intensity reached degree VIII EMS along a narrow strip extending for 5 km astride the Fiandaca fault. In this paper, we simulated the damage scenario in the most struck municipalities of the epicentral area by testing different methodological approaches proposed in the literature using the information of the ISTAT census data collected by the Italian Institute of Statistics. We evaluated the damage level of the residential buildings and we validated the results comparing with the real damage data recognized in the field. Our analysis highlighted the difficulty of applying methods calibrated for larger earthquakes in tectonic domains, to small magnitude events in volcanic zones, where some operating assumptions must be introduced. Despite this, the results confirm the potential of the simulations based on statistical damage assessment methods also in these peculiar conditions, opening the way to finalized plans of pre- and post-earthquake interventions.

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (14) ◽  
pp. 6533-6570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Teresa De Risi ◽  
Carlo Del Gaudio ◽  
Gerardo Mario Verderame

Abstract The reliable estimation of seismic losses due to damage to buildings is paramount for the post-emergency management and the planning of recovery activities. For residential reinforced concrete (RC) infilled buildings, a significant role in the computation of seismic loss is played by non-structural components, above all infills, partitions and services, as shown in past earthquakes. In this work, a component-based methodology is proposed to assess seismic losses for residential RC buildings in Mediterranean region. The attention is focused on the repairing activities for masonry infills (typical enclosure or partitions elements in Italian and Mediterranean RC buildings), and for services (plumbing systems, electric equipment, floor/wall tiles…), commonly enclosed within the infill panels for the considered building typology. The described methodology can be used starting from the expected damage level to infills and partitions. It adopts given repair unit costs at different damage states of infills. The loss estimation methodology has been, first, validated by comparing predicted and actual repair costs for specific case-study buildings damaged by L’Aquila (Italy) 2009 earthquake. Then, the methodology has been applied to a wide dataset of RC buildings (about 2500 residential buildings) damaged by L’Aquila earthquake available from the literature, to show its possible application at a large-scale level. A good agreement between observed and predicted costs is obtained both for specific case-study buildings and for the wider building stock, especially when damage to structural components is very limited.


Author(s):  
Junaidah Jailani ◽  
◽  
Norsyalifa Mohamad ◽  
Muhammad Amirul Omar ◽  
Hauashdh Ali ◽  
...  

According to the National Energy Balance report released by the Energy Commission of Malaysia in 2016, the residential sector uses 21.6% of the total energy in Malaysia. Residents waste energy through inefficient energy consumption and a lack of awareness. Building occupants are considered the main factor that influences energy consumption in buildings, and to change energy consumption on an overall scale, it is crucial to change individual behaviour. Therefore, this study focused on analysing the energy consumption pattern and the behaviour of consumers towards energy consumption in their homes in the residential area of Batu Pahat, Johor. A self-administrated questionnaire approach was employed in this study. The findings of this study showed that the excessive use of air conditioners was a significant factor in the increasing electricity bills of homeowners as well as the inefficient use of electrical appliances. Also, this study determined the effect of awareness on consumer behaviour. This study recommends ways to help minimise energy consumption in the residential area.


Author(s):  
Ken Wei Tan ◽  
Joel R. Koo ◽  
Jue Tao Lim ◽  
Alex R. Cook ◽  
Borame L. Dickens

Chronic disease burdens continue to rise in highly dense urban environments where clustering of type II diabetes mellitus, acute myocardial infarction, stroke, or any combination of these three conditions is occurring. Many individuals suffering from these conditions will require longer-term care and access to clinics which specialize in managing their illness. With Singapore as a case study, we utilized census data in an agent-modeling approach at an individual level to estimate prevalence in 2020 and found high-risk clusters with >14,000 type II diabetes mellitus cases and 2000–2500 estimated stroke cases. For comorbidities, 10% of those with type II diabetes mellitus had a past acute myocardial infarction episode, while 6% had a past stroke. The western region of Singapore had the highest number of high-risk individuals at 173,000 with at least one chronic condition, followed by the east at 169,000 and the north with the least at 137,000. Such estimates can assist in healthcare resource planning, which requires these spatial distributions for evidence-based policymaking and to investigate why such heterogeneities exist. The methodologies presented can be utilized within any urban setting where census data exists.


Author(s):  
Xavier Franch-Auladell ◽  
Mateu Morillas-Torné ◽  
Jordi Martí-Henneberg

ABSTRACTThis paper proposes a methodology for quantifying the territorial impact on population distribution of the railway. The central hypothesis is that access to railway services provides the best-connected areas with a long-term comparative advantage over others that are less accessible. Carrying out a historical analysis and providing comparable data at the municipal level allows us to determine the extent to which the railway has fostered the concentration of population within its immediate surroundings. The case study presented here is that of Spain between 1900 and 2001, but the same methodology could equally be applied to any other country for which the required data are available. In this case, key data included a Geographic Information System with information about both the development of the railway network and census data relating to total population at the municipal level. The results obtained suggest the relevance of this methodology, which makes it possible to identify the periods and areas in which this influence was most significant.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1049
Author(s):  
Zhang Deng ◽  
Yixing Chen ◽  
Xiao Pan ◽  
Zhiwen Peng ◽  
Jingjing Yang

Urban building energy modeling (UBEM) is arousing interest in building energy modeling, which requires a large building dataset as an input. Building use is a critical parameter to infer archetype buildings for UBEM. This paper presented a case study to determine building use for city-scale buildings by integrating the Geographic Information System (GIS) based point-of-interest (POI) and community boundary datasets. A total of 68,966 building footprints, 281,767 POI data, and 3367 community boundaries were collected for Changsha, China. The primary building use was determined when a building was inside a community boundary (i.e., hospital or residential boundary) or the building contained POI data with main attributes (i.e., hotel or office building). Clustering analysis was used to divide buildings into sub-types for better energy performance evaluation. The method successfully identified building uses for 47,428 buildings among 68,966 building footprints, including 34,401 residential buildings, 1039 office buildings, 141 shopping malls, and 932 hotels. A validation process was carried out for 7895 buildings in the downtown area, which showed an overall accuracy rate of 86%. A UBEM case study for 243 office buildings in the downtown area was developed with the information identified from the POI and community boundary datasets. The proposed building use determination method can be easily applied to other cities. We will integrate the historical aerial imagery to determine the year of construction for a large scale of buildings in the future.


2018 ◽  
Vol 166 ◽  
pp. 258-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasia Fotopoulou ◽  
Giovanni Semprini ◽  
Elena Cattani ◽  
Yves Schihin ◽  
Julian Weyer ◽  
...  

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