Martha L Carreño
CIMNE, Risk Assessment Group, RAG, Faculty Member
Risk identification is the first step on a comprehensive disaster risk management strategy, and nowadays, when new open-source tools to conduct those analyses are becoming widely available, the interest and need to increase their... more
Risk identification is the first step on a comprehensive disaster risk management strategy, and nowadays, when new open-source tools to conduct those analyses are becoming widely available, the interest and need to increase their transparency has increased. Catastrophic risk due to natural hazards should be considered in a prospective way quantifying the damages and losses before the real event occurs, and for that task, it is necessary to consider events that have not yet occurred. Since there are uncertainties related to when and where the next hazardous event will happen, how severe will it be, and how can it affect the exposed elements, it is important to adopt a probabilistic approach that considers those uncertainties and propagates them through the damage and loss calculation process following a rigorous methodology. This chapter develops the theoretical catastrophe risk model considering both retrospective and prospective analyses. In addition, it summarizes the methodology for the inclusion of second-order effects (nonphysical risk drivers), the approach to rationally incorporate background trends (e.g., climate change), an extension of the model to incorporate non-probabilistic uncertainty, and a methodology to define management actions that fit resilience targets. The work presented herein serves to provide a ground base for the minimum requirements of probabilistic risk assessment models.
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The Risk Management Index, RMI, brings together a group of indicators that measure risk management performance and effectiveness. These indicators reflect the organizational, development, capacity and institutional actions taken to reduce... more
The Risk Management Index, RMI, brings together a group of indicators that measure risk management performance and effectiveness. These indicators reflect the organizational, development, capacity and institutional actions taken to reduce vulnerability and losses, to prepare for crisis and to recover efficiently from disasters. This index was designed to assess risk management “performance”. It provides a qualitative measure of management based on predefined “targets ” or “benchmarks ” that risk management efforts should aim to achieve. The design of the RMI involved establishing a scale of achievement levels or determining the “distance ” between current conditions and an objective threshold or conditions in a reference country, subnational region, or city. The RMI was constructed by quantifying four public policies, each of which has six indicators. The policies include the identification of risk, risk reduction, disaster management, and governance and financial protection. Risk I...
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Karslruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative (EMI), CAPRA, CIMNE, GEM
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The Risk Management Index, IGR, is an essential technical contribution of operation ATN / JF-7907-RG of the IDB, coordinated by the Institute of Environmental Studies, IDEA, of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, sede Manizales, within... more
The Risk Management Index, IGR, is an essential technical contribution of operation ATN / JF-7907-RG of the IDB, coordinated by the Institute of Environmental Studies, IDEA, of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, sede Manizales, within the regional program on "Information and Indicators of Risk and Risk Management" for the Americas, promoted by the IDB, ECLAC and the IDEA between March 2003 and May 2005. It is a composite indicator based on a multi-attribute technique. It represents a series of risk factors that must be minimized through policies and actions to reduce vulnerability and through the maximization of resilience, that is, of the capacity to face and absorb the impacts of dangerous phenomena. Each composite index is made up of various factors that are represented by existing indicators or variables. For purposes of formulating the IGR, it was necessary to propose qualitative indicators, valued with subjective scales, due to the nature of the aspects that are evaluated and due to the lack of pre-existing parameters. The weighting of the indicators that constitute it was made based on the criterion of experts of each country, using numerical techniques consistent from the theoretical and statistical point of view. The IGR is the first systemic approach - based on fuzzy sets - that is used at the international, national and urban levels to assess the performance of risk management, in order to establish targets that improve the management effectiveness. Decision makers, at different territorial levels, now have a useful tool for monitoring the risk management and have the possibility to observe the relative position over time of the studied area and compare the obtained results with other countries, regions or cities. The strength of the IGR lies in the possibility of disaggregating the results and identifying the progress and deficiencies of risk management, with the aim of guiding the actions in order to improve its effectiveness. Its main objective is to stimulate decision-making
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Once an earthquake has occurred, the inspection of the buildings should be carried out as quickly as possible, in order to reduce the risk and discomfort of the people. This means that it is not possible to perform a detailed evaluation,... more
Once an earthquake has occurred, the inspection of the buildings should be carried out as quickly as possible, in order to reduce the risk and discomfort of the people. This means that it is not possible to perform a detailed evaluation, making a complete geometric survey of the building, taking samples for a detailed analysis of the seismic pathology and performing a numerical analysis using computers. On the contrary, damage assessments and the habitability of buildings should be carried out based on visual inspection and expert judgment. This monograph aims to develop a general methodology for the inspection and classification of buildings affected by an earthquake. It starts by collecting and analyzing the information existing in different countries on the main methodologies of damage assessment and habitability, in order to compare different approaches and identify the necessary bases to propose a methodology for the evaluation of buildings affected by earthquakes. Then, it establishes the procedure to be used to assess the damage and the safety of the buildings after an earthquake. Finally, it proposes a form, of quick and easy application, for the inspection and classification of buildings affected by an earthquake, according to their state of damage and their level of security
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The difficulty of considering aspects such as the effectiveness of risk management or the ability to react in the event of a disaster in a single methodology of risk analysis requires using techniques based on indicators. Indicators,... more
The difficulty of considering aspects such as the effectiveness of risk management or the ability to react in the event of a disaster in a single methodology of risk analysis requires using techniques based on indicators. Indicators, which reflect different aspects of risk components, are reference values of the hazard, exposure, vulnerability or risk that consider physical economic, social and environmental aspects. The main application of a system of risk indicators is to assess all these aspects in a geographical area, which can be a country, a subnational region or a city and to allow a detailed analysis of the urban area. The basic indicators at the city level that are necessary to perform risk assessments and are presented in this chapter are the following: physical exposure indicators, economic exposure indicators, population exposure indicators, hazard and physical risk indicators, total risk index for holistic risk estimation and the risk management index
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Research Interests: Geography, Computer Science, Fuzzy Logic, Natural Hazards, Fuzzy Sets, and 11 moreRisk Management, Seismology, Social vulnerability, Seismic Vulnerability, computer science Artificial intelligence, HAZARD, Sismologia, Conceptualization, Fuzzy Inference System, Vulnerability Index, and Engineering Civil
The fuzzy set theory offers a bridge between the symbolic and numerical processing, allowing managing qualitative concepts useful in the decision-making process related to the seismic risk management and, in general, to the disaster risk... more
The fuzzy set theory offers a bridge between the symbolic and numerical processing, allowing managing qualitative concepts useful in the decision-making process related to the seismic risk management and, in general, to the disaster risk management. Its use in the seismic risk evaluation is necessary in the cases where the data required to apply a conventional method of assessing risk are not available or are insufficient. One possible solution, considered in this article, is to replace the missing information by expert opinions and to process the resulting qualitative variables and linguistic qualifications instead of numerical values. This process is based on the fuzzy set theory. In order to achieve an effective management, the risk must be defined as the potential physical, economic, social and environmental consequences which occur due to hazards in a given period of time. From this holistic perspective and using the fuzzy set theory, the proposed numerical method calculates a level of the physical risk and level of the aggravating conditions related to social fragility and to the lack of resilience, to determine a total risk level. The proposed method is applied to the city of Barcelona, Spain, and the obtained results are compared with those corresponding to a conventional method of holistic evaluation.
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This work attempts to explain how probabilistic seismic risk assessments can be performed at different resolution levels, using, strictly speaking, the same methodology (or arithmetic) and, then, how to obtain results in terms of the same... more
This work attempts to explain how probabilistic seismic risk assessments can be performed at different resolution levels, using, strictly speaking, the same methodology (or arithmetic) and, then, how to obtain results in terms of the same metrics; but, also, highlighting what the differences in terms of inputs for the analysis and the reasons for them (i.e. including the dynamic soil response effects which are only relevant in local assessments) are. First, a country level assessment is first performed using a coarse-grain exposure database that includes only the building stock in the urban regions of Spain. Second, a urban seismic risk assessment is performed for Lorca, Murcia. In both cases, the fully probabilistic seismic risk results are expressed in terms of the loss exceedance curve which corresponds to the main output of said analysis from where different probabilistic risk metrics, such as the average annual loss and the probable maximum loss, as well as several other relati...
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Assessment of Vulnerability to Natural Hazards covers the vulnerability of human and environmental systems to climate change and eight natural hazards: earthquakes, floods, landslides, avalanches, forest fires, drought, coastal erosion,... more
Assessment of Vulnerability to Natural Hazards covers the vulnerability of human and environmental systems to climate change and eight natural hazards: earthquakes, floods, landslides, avalanches, forest fires, drought, coastal erosion, and heat waves
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METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH USING INDICATORS At present, no specific indicators exist in the countries, widely accepted, to valuate directly the performance of risk management or other relevant issues that reflect what we want to measure as... more
METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH USING INDICATORS At present, no specific indicators exist in the countries, widely accepted, to valuate directly the performance of risk management or other relevant issues that reflect what we want to measure as risk management. One of the ...
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The Risk Management Index, RMI, brings together a group of indicators that measure risk management perform- ance and effectiveness. These indicators reflect the organizational, development, capacity and institutional actions taken to... more
The Risk Management Index, RMI, brings together a group of indicators that measure risk management perform- ance and effectiveness. These indicators reflect the organizational, development, capacity and institutional actions taken to reduce vulnerability and losses, to prepare for crisis and to recover efficiently from disasters. This index was designed to assess risk management "performance". It provides a qualitative measure of management based on prede- fined "targets" or "benchmarks" that risk management efforts should aim to achieve. The design of the RMI involved establishing a scale of achievement levels or determining the "distance" between current conditions and an objective threshold or conditions in a reference country, subnational region, or city. The RMI was constructed by quantifying four public policies, each of which has six indicators. The policies include the identification of risk, risk reduction, disaster management, and go...
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The objectives of this thesis are: the ex ante seismic risk evaluation for urban centers, the disaster risk management evaluation and the ex post risk evaluation of the damaged buildings after an earthquake. A complete review of the basic... more
The objectives of this thesis are: the ex ante seismic risk evaluation for urban centers, the disaster risk management evaluation and the ex post risk evaluation of the damaged buildings after an earthquake. A complete review of the basic concepts and of the most important recent ...
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Disaster risk from a macroeconomic perspective: a metric for fiscal
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Research Interests: Mechanical Engineering, Ocean Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Geography, Biomedical Engineering, and 11 moreHurricanes, Risk Management, Industrial Engineering, Marine Engineering, Vulnerability, Indicators, Disaster risk reduction, Risk Evaluation, Engineering Civil, Engineering Manufacturing, and Multidisciplinary Engineering Optimisation
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An analysis of the earthquake losses for Lorca, Spain has been performed in this article. The seismic hazard is represented by a set of stochastic scenarios that allow considering the effect of all the possible events upon the future... more
An analysis of the earthquake losses for Lorca, Spain has been performed in this article. The seismic hazard is represented by a set of stochastic scenarios that allow considering the effect of all the possible events upon the future losses in the city. The dynamic response of the soil has been also considered using spectral transfer functions. Another important starting point for estimating damages and losses has been the database of the buildings of Lorca which includes essential information regarding the structures such as age, building materials, number of floors and typology. To each structural type, vulnerability functions have been associated in order to obtain the expected losses for different levels of the ground acceleration. An approach based on the replacement cost allows calculating direct losses in monetary terms. The most important result was the loss exceedance curve from which the expected annual loss and the probable maximum loss are derived. Both the threat and vulnerability were modeled in a probabilistic way, considering their inherent uncertainties and also their propagation in the damages and losses calculation process.
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Research Interests: Business, Management, Engineering, Psychology, Decision Making, and 15 moreDisaster risk management, Decision Sciences, Prediction, Natural Hazards, Disaster Management, Emergency Management, Organizational Development, Atmospheric sciences, Identification, Recovery, Natural hazard, Indexation, Engineering Civil, Performance Index, and Public Policy
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A method and a computational tool oriented to assist the damage and safety evaluation of buildings after strong earthquakes is described in this article. The input of the model is the subjective and incomplete information on the building... more
A method and a computational tool oriented to assist the damage and safety evaluation of buildings after strong earthquakes is described in this article. The input of the model is the subjective and incomplete information on the building state, obtained by inspectors which are possibly not expert professionals of the field of building safety. The damage levels of the structural components are usually described by linguistic qualifications which can be adequately processed by computational intelligence techniques based on neuro-fuzzy systems what facilitate the complex and urgent tasks of engineering decision-making on the building occupancy after a seismic disaster. The hybrid neuro-fuzzy system used is based on a special three-layer feedforward artificial neural network and fuzzy rule bases and is an effective tool during the emergency response phase providing decisions about safety, habitability, and reparability of the buildings. Examples of application of the computer program ar...