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Seismic vulnerability assessment of the old city centre of Horta, Azores: calibration and application of a seismic vulnerability index method

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Abstract

The seismic vulnerability assessment of old masonry buildings is essential not only to buildings with recognised historical and heritage value but also to ordinary residential masonry buildings. Thus, and resorting a wide set of damage data collected after the 1998 Azores earthquake, this paper addresses the topic of the seismic vulnerability assessment of traditional masonry buildings through the calibration and application of a simplified vulnerability assessment method to the old city centre of Horta (Faial Island), in Portugal. In this case study, 192 buildings were assessed using this methodology, and vulnerability and loss scenarios were analysed using an integrated Geographical Information System tool. As is discussed in this paper, such procedure could allow city councils or regional authorities to plan interventions based on a global view of the site under analysis, leading to more accurate and comprehensive risk mitigation strategies, which can than support the requirements of safety and emergency planning.

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Adapted from Zonno et al. (2010)

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Acknowledgements

This paper refers to work supported by the Portuguese Foundation of Science and Technology (FCT), under the research project “URBSIS: Assessing Vulnerability and Managing Earthquake Risk at Urban Scale” (PTDC/ECM-URB/2564/2012). The authors acknowledge to the Society of Promotion for Housing and Infrastructures Rehabilitation (SPRHI) and Regional Secretariat for Housing and Equipment (SRHE), and thanks to Professor Aníbal Costa and Eng. Filipe Neves for having made available a dataset of information related to the reconstruction process of the Faial Island. The constructive comments and suggestions given by the reviewers are also acknowledged by the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ISISE - Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal

    Tiago Miguel Ferreira

  2. RISCO - Department of Civil Engineering, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    Rui Maio & Romeu Vicente

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  1. Tiago Miguel Ferreira
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  2. Rui Maio
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  3. Romeu Vicente
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Correspondence to Tiago Miguel Ferreira.

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Ferreira, T.M., Maio, R. & Vicente, R. Seismic vulnerability assessment of the old city centre of Horta, Azores: calibration and application of a seismic vulnerability index method. Bull Earthquake Eng 15, 2879–2899 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-016-0071-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-016-0071-9

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