Sensitivity of earthquake damage estimation to the input data: Case study in the Luchon valley, France

Rosemary Fayjaloun (1) , Caterina Negulescu (1) , Agathe Roulle (1) , Pierre Gehl (1) , Samuel Auclair (1) , Marta Faravelli (2)

1 BRGM - Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM)
2 EUCENTRE - European centre for Training and reasearch in Earthquake Engineering

This article studies the effects of the soil data and exposure data of residential building inventories, as well as their spatial resolution, on seismic damage and loss estimates for a given earthquake scenario. Our aim is to investigate how beneficial it would be to acquire higher resolution inventories, at the cost of additional effort and resources. Seismic damage computations are used to evaluate the relative influence of varying spatial resolution on a given damage model, where other parameters were held constant. We use soil characterization maps and building exposure inventories, provided at different scales from different sources: the European database, a national data set at the municipality scale, and local field investigations. Soil characteristics are used to evaluate site effects and to assign amplification factors to the strong motion applied to the exposed areas. Exposure data sets are used to assign vulnerability indices to sets of buildings, from which a damage distribution is produced (based on the applied seismic intensity). The different spatial resolutions are benchmarked in a case-study area which is subject to moderate-to-average seismicity levels (Luchon valley in the Pyrénées, France). It was found that the proportion of heavily damaged buildings is underestimated when using the European soil map and the European building database, while the more refined databases (national/regional vs. local maps) result in similar estimates for moderate earthquake scenarios. Finally, we highlight the importance of pooling open access data from different sources, but caution the challenges of combining different data sets, especially depending on the type of application that is pursued (e.g., for risk mitigation or rapid response tools).

Mots clés: Damage and loss assessment; site effects; exposure modelling; spatial resolution; earthquake scenario

Domaines: Mécanique des structures [physics.class-ph]; Risques

Rosemary Fayjaloun, Caterina Negulescu, Agathe Roulle, Pierre Gehl, Samuel Auclair, et al.. Sensitivity of earthquake damage estimation to the input data: Case study in the Luchon valley, France. 3rd EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING & SEISMOLOGY Sep 2022, Bucarest, Romania, Sep 2022, Bucarest, Romania. ⟨hal-03749027⟩