Issues in Urban Earthquake Risk

Urban seismic risk is growing worldwide and is increasingly a problem of developing countries. This book focuses on recent urban earthquake safety developments around the world; in particular, it provides approaches and procedures for the creation of earthquake damage scenarios (EDS). The articles will stimulate anyone -- scientist, engineer, government official, business leader, international aid provider -- considering an EDS project for a city, and they list some of the questions that should be asked, suggest methods of answering them, and describe some advantages and disadvantages of different approaches. Two articles discuss how the above strategies fared in a pilot EDS project nearing completion in Quito, Ecuador. Finally, authors from fourteen other earthquake-threatened cities in developed and developing countries attempt to summarize the earthquake safety of their cities. In the context of their particular social, economic, political, and technical settings, they discuss needs and approaches to reducing earthquake risk.