Seismic Risk at the Urban Scale: Assessment, Mapping and Planning

In the last decades the evaluation of the seismic risk is of rising concern, considered essential in the activity and definition of strategy planning and urban management. The evaluation of the seismic vulnerability of the existent building stock in the perspective of seismic risk mitigation should not be placed only in relation to the isolated buildings of relevant historical and cultural importance, but also, in relation to residential buildings within old urban centers. When assessing the seismic vulnerability of buildings it is essential to first establish the project objectives, before subsequently choosing the most appropriate strategy and tools necessary for building assessment and fulfillment of these objectives. It is also extremely important to understand the difference between the detailed approaches used for individual building assessment and those methods most efficient for larger scale analysis, pursued for city center assessment. In this work, the results attained from the vulnerability assessment of the old city center of Faro, in Portugal, allowed the estimation of physical damage scenarios, economical and human losses. The methodology applied herein and results are presented resourcing to a GIS application and database management system, enabling the storage of building features and survey, seismic vulnerability and risk mapping, as well as the continued upgrading and improvement of the collected data.