Abstract
In this paper, seismic risk scenarios for Bucharest, the capital city of Romania, are proposed and assessed. Bucharest has one of the highest seismic risk levels in Europe, and this is due to a combination of relatively high seismic hazard and a building stock built mainly before the devastating Vrancea 1977 earthquake. In this study, the seismic risk of Bucharest is assessed using the most recent information regarding the characteristics of the residential building stock. The ground motion amplitudes are evaluated starting from random fields obtained by coupling a ground motion model derived for the Vrancea intermediate-depth seismic source with a spatial correlation model. The seismic risk evaluation method applied in this study is based on the well-known macroseismic method. For several structural typologies, the vulnerability parameters are evaluated based on a damage survey performed on 18,000 buildings in Bucharest after the March 1977 earthquake. Subsequently, the risk metrics are compared with those from other studies in the literature that apply a different risk assessment methodology in order to gain a better view of the uncertainties associated with a seismic risk study at city level. Finally, the impact of several Vrancea intermediate-depth earthquake scenarios is evaluated and the results show that the earthquake which has the closest epicenter to Bucharest appears to be the most damaging.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Balan St, Cristescu V, Cornea I (coord.) (1982) The Romanian earthquake on March 4, 1977. Ed. Academiei, Bucharest, Romania
Corbane C, Hancilar U, Ehrlich D, De Groeve T (2017) Pan-European seismic risk assessment: a proof of concept using the Earthquake Loss Estimation Routine (ELER). Bull Earthq Eng 15:1057–1083
EN 1998-1 (2004) Design of structures for earthquake resistance—Part 1: general rules, seismic actions and rules for buildings. European Committee for Standardization, Brussels, Belgium
Esposito S, Iervolino I (2011) PGA and PGV spatial correlation models based on European multievent datasets. Bull Seismol Soc Am 101(5):2532–2541
Fajfar P (2000) A nonlinear analysis method for performance-based seismic design. Earthq Spectra 16:573–592
Federal Emergency Management Agency (2012) Multi-hazard loss estimation methodology. Earthquake model—HAZUS MH 2.1. In: Technical manual, Washington, USA
KOERI (2002) Earthquake risk assessment for Istanbul metropolitan area. In: Report prepared for American Red Cross and Turkish Red Crescent, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey
Lagomarsino S, Giovinazzi S (2006) Macroseismic and mechanical models for the vulnerability and damage assessment of current buildings. Bull Earthq Eng 4(4):415–443
Lang D, Molina-Palacios S, Lindholm C, Balan S (2012) Deterministic earthquake damage and loss assessment for the city of Bucharest, Romania. J Seismol 16:67–88
Mota da Sá F, Amaral Ferreira M, Sousa Oliveira C (2016) QuakeIST earthquake scenario simulator using interdependencies. Bull Earthq Eng 14(7):2047–2067
P100-1/2013 (2013) Code for seismic design—Part I—Design prescriptions for buildings. Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania
Pavel F, Vacareanu R (2016) Scenario-based earthquake risk assessment for Bucharest, Romania. Int J Disaster Risk Reduct 20:138–144
Pavel F, Vacareanu R (2017) Spatial correlation of ground motions from Vrancea (Romania) intermediate-depth earthquakes. Bull Seismol Soc Am 107(1):489–494
Pavel F, Vacareanu R, Douglas J, Radulian M, Cioflan CO, Barbat A (2016a) An updated probabilistic seismic hazard assessment for Romania and comparison with the approach and outcomes of the SHARE project. Pure appl Geophys 173(6):1881–1905
Pavel F, Calotescu I, Vacareanu R, Sandulescu AM (2016b) Derivation of scenario earthquakes for Bucharest, Romania. In: Proceedings of the international conference on urban risks ICUR, Lisbon, Portugal, paper No. 145
Pitilakis K (2015) Earthquake risk assessment: certitudes, fallacies, uncertainties and the quest for soundness. In: Ansal A (ed) Perspectives on European earthquake engineering and seismology, vol 2. Springer, Berlin
Sokolov V, Wenzel F (2011) Influence of ground-motion correlation on probabilistic assessments of seismic hazard and loss: sensitivity analysis. Bull Earthq Eng 9:1339–1360
Toma-Danila D, Zulfikar C, Manea EF, Cioflan CO (2015) Improved seismic risk estimation for Bucharest, based on multiple hazard scenarios and analytical methods. Soil Dyn Earthq Eng 73:1–16
Vacareanu R, Radulian M, Iancovici M, Pavel F, Neagu C (2015a) Fore-arc and back-arc ground motion prediction model for Vrancea intermediate depth seismic source. J Earthq Eng 19:535–562
Vacareanu R, Iancovici M, Neagu C, Pavel F (2015b) Macroseismic intensity prediction equations for Vrancea intermediate-depth seismic source. Nat Hazards 79(3):2005–2031
Weatherhill GA, Silva V, Crowley H, Bazzurro P (2015) Exploring the impact of spatial correlations and uncertainties for portfolio analysis in probabilistic seismic loss estimation. Bull Earthquake Eng 13:957–981
Woessner J, Danciu L, Giardini D, Crowley H, Cotton F, Grünthal G, Valensise G, Arvidsson R, Basili R, Demircioglu MB, Hiemer S, Meletti C, Musson RMW, Rovida AN, Sesetyan K, Stucchi M, and the SHARE Consortium (2015) The 2013 European Seismic Hazard Model: key components and results. Bull Earthq Eng 13(12):3553–3596
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNCS–UEFISCDI, project number PN-II-RU-TE-2014-4-0697. The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support. The authors are grateful to the National Statistics Institute (INS) for providing the information regarding the building inventory in Bucharest. The authors are also grateful to Dr. Mónica Amaral Ferreira for providing the QuakeIST code that was used for the analyses contained in this paper. The constructive feedback from two anonymous reviewers is greatly appreciated as it has helped us to considerably improve the quality of the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pavel, F., Calotescu, I., Vacareanu, R. et al. Assessment of seismic risk scenarios for Bucharest, Romania. Nat Hazards 93 (Suppl 1), 25–37 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-017-2991-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-017-2991-3