Abstract
Present research analyses the human exposure at one of the most dangerous earthquake zones in Bulgaria-Blagoevgrad region and propose a detailed seismic scenario for the main city. Seismic hazard is modelled using GIS and overlaid with one square kilometer grid of population distribution in order to determine the population exposure in the region. We define a parameter called “population exposure index” (PEI) which has five classes: Minor, Low, Moderate, High and Major. As was expected, the seismic hazard levels of Blagoevgrad region are in the upper part of the classification scale. The total population in the Blagoevgrad region (NUTS II) is around 323,000 people. Results show that more than 130,000 people are exposed to the highest level of seismic hazard. City of Blagoevgrad gathers nearly 22% of the population in the region. A specially developed seismic scenario for the city accounting the soil conditions as well is used for detailed assessment of the people exposed to seismic hazard. The obtained values of Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) varying between 0.29 and 0.45 g are crossed with the population living in each building to determine the levels of population exposure. Our results show that people living in 398 buildings are majorly exposed to the seismic hazard in Blagoevgrad city. Another 1465 buildings are determined as highly exposed to this threat. Delineation of these buildings might be very important for the regional authority and focusing on the prevention of possible earthquake effects.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Solakov et al.: Seismic risk management for buildings. Acad. Publ. house Prof. M. Drinov, Sofia. p. 195 (2019)
Watzof, S.: The earthquakes in Bulgaria. Report on the earthquakes felt in 1904. Central Meteorological Institute, Sofia (in Bulgarian, abstract in French) (1905).
Burton, I., Kates, R.W., White, G.F.: The Environment as Hazard, 2nd edn. Guilford Press. New York/London, 290 pp. (1993)
Freire, S., Aubrecht, C.: Integrating population dynamics into mapping human exposure to seismic hazard. Nat. Haz. Earth Syst. Sci. \textbf{12}, 3533–3543 (2012) https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-12-3533-2012
Dao, H., Peduzzi, P.: Global Risk And Vulnerability Index Trends per Year (GRAVITY), Phase IV: Technical annex and multiple risk integration, UNDP/BCPR, Geneva, Tech. Rep., 31 pp. (2003)
Solakov, D., Metodiev, M., Simeonova, S., Trifonova, P.: Population exposure index – an element of seismic risk assessment. In: 10th Congress of the Balkan Geophysical Society. Sofia (2019). https://doi.org/10.3997/2214-4609.201902659
Solakov, D., Simeonova, S., Raykova, P., Rangelov, B.: Earthquake scenarios for the city of Blagoevgrad. In: XXth International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference Surveying, Geology and Mining, Ecology and Management – SGEM 2020, Albena, Bularia
Basili, R., Kasteli,c V., Demirciogl,u M., Garcia Moreno, D., Nemser, E., Petricca, P., Sboras, S., Besana-Ostman, G., Cabral, J., Camelbeeck, T., Caputo, R., Danciu, L., Domac, H., Fonseca, J., García-Mayordomo, J., Giardini, D., Glavatovic, B., Gulen, L., Ince, Y., Pavlides, S., Sesetyan, K., Tarabusi, G., Tiberti, M., Utkucu, M., Valensise, G., Vanneste, K., Vilanova, S., Wössner, J.: The European Database of Seismogenic Faults (EDSF) compiled in the framework of the Project SHARE (2013). https://diss.rm.ingv.it/share-edsf/, doi: https://doi.org/10.6092/INGV.IT-SHARE-EDSF
Rangelov, B., Solakov, D., Dimovsky, St., Kisyov, A., Georgieva, B.: Mapping and digitalization of the ground conditions for the seismic hazard assessment. In: 19th “Days of Physics 2020”, Tech. Univ., Sofia, 28–30 of May, 2020
Acknowledgements
Present work is supported by Contract No D01-282/17.12.2019 (Project "National Geoinformation Center (NGIC)" financed by the National Roadmap for Scientific Infrastructure 2017–2023.
Development of the input seismic database is financed by the National Science Program “Environmental Protection and Reduction of Risks of Adverse Events and Natural Disasters”, supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of Bulgaria (Agreement № ДO-230/06-12-2018).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Trifonova, P., Solakov, D., Simeonova, S., Metodiev, M., Balan, S.F. (2021). Seismic Scenario and People Exposure for Blagoevgrad Region, Bulgaria. In: Dobrinkova, N., Gadzhev, G. (eds) Environmental Protection and Disaster Risks. EnviroRISK 2020. Studies in Systems, Decision and Control, vol 361. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70190-1_20
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70190-1_20
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-70189-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-70190-1
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)