• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.4 no.3
• /
• pp.299-324
• /
• 2013

The current research focuses on the seismic vulnerability assessment of typical Southern Europe buildings, based on processing of a large set of observational damage data. The presented study constitutes a sequel of a previous research. The damage statistics have been enriched and a wider damage database (178578 buildings) is created compared to the one of the first presented paper (73468 buildings) with Damage Probability Matrices (DPMs) after the elaboration of the results from post-earthquake surveys carried out in the area struck by the 7-9-1999 near field Athens earthquake. The dataset comprises buildings which developed damage in several degree, type and extent. Two different parameters are estimated for the description of the seismic demand. After the classification of damaged buildings into structural types they are further categorized according to the level of damage and macroseismic intensity. The relative and the cumulative frequencies of the different damage states, for each structural type and each intensity level, are computed and presented, in terms of damage ratio. Damage Probability Matrices (DPMs) are obtained for typical structural types and they are compared to existing matrices derived from regions with similar building stock and soil conditions. A procedure is presented for the classification of those buildings which initially could not be discriminated into structural types due to restricted information and hence they had been disregarded. New proportional DPMs are developed and a correlation analysis is fulfilled with the existing vulnerability relations.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.323-335
• /
• 2017

A simplified framework for the probabilistic estimation of economic losses induced by the structural vulnerability in single-story and single-bay precast industrial buildings is presented. The simplifications introduced in the framework are oriented to the definition of an expeditious procedure adoptable by government agencies and insurance companies for preliminary risk assessment. The economic losses are evaluated considering seismic hazard, structural response, damage resulting from the structural vulnerability and only structural-vulnerability-induced e]conomic losses, i.e., structural repair or reconstruction costs (stock and flow costs) and content losses induced by structural collapse. The uncertainties associated with each step are accounted for via Monte Carlo simulations. The estimation results in a probabilistic description of the seismic risk of portal-like industrial buildings, expressed in terms of economic losses for each occurrence (i.e., seismic event) that owners (i.e., insured) and stakeholders can use to make risk management decisions. The outcome may also be useful for the definition of the insurance premiums and the evaluation of the risks and costs for the owner corresponding to the insurance industrial costs. A prototype of a precast concrete industrial building located in Mirandola, Italy, hit by the 2012 Emilia earthquake, is used as an example of the application of the procedure.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
• /
• v.7 no.4
• /
• pp.367-392
• /
• 2020

The specific characteristics of near-field earthquake records can lead to different dynamic responses of bridges compared to far-field records. However, the effect of near-field strong ground motion has often been neglected in the seismic performance assessment of the bridges. Furthermore, damage to horizontally curved multi-frame RC box-girder bridges in the past earthquakes has intensified the potential of seismic vulnerability of these structures due to their distinctive dynamic behavior. Based on the nonlinear time history analyses in OpenSEES, this article, assesses the effects of near-field versus far-field earthquakes on the seismic performance of horizontally curved multi-frame RC box-girder bridges by accounting the vertical component of the earthquake records. Analytical seismic fragility curves have been derived thru considering uncertainties in the earthquake records, material and geometric properties of bridges. The findings indicate that near-field effects reasonably increase the seismic vulnerability in this bridge sub-class. The results pave the way for future regional risk assessments regarding the importance of either including or excluding near-field effects on the seismic performance of horizontally curved bridges.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.263-275
• /
• 2022

Structural collapses can occur as a result of a dynamic amplification of either, the building's seismic response or the ground shaking by local site effects; one of the reasons is a resonance effect due to the proximity of the structural elastic fundamental period TE and the soil fundamental period TS. We evaluate the vulnerability to resonance effects in Guadalajara, México, in a three-step schema: 1) we define structural systems in the building environment of western Guadalajara, in terms of their construction materials and structural components; 2) we estimate TE with different equations, to obtain a representative value in elastic conditions for each structural system; and, 3) we evaluate the resonance vulnerability by the analysis of the ratio between TE and TS. We observe that the larger the soil fundamental period, the higher the resonance vulnerability for buildings with height between 17 and 39 m. For the sites with a low TS, the most vulnerable buildings will be those with a height between 2 and 9 m. These results can be a helpful tool for disaster prevention, by avoiding the construction of buildings with certain heights and structural characteristics that would result in a dangerous proximity between TE and TS.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
• /
• v.4 no.4
• /
• pp.397-407
• /
• 2013

Seasons in Korea have very distinguishable features. Due to continental high pressure, spring in Korea is dry and has low precipitation. Due to climate change derived from the increase of greenhouse gases, climate variability had increased and it became harder to predict. This caused the spring drought harsher than usual. Since 1990s, numbers of chronic drought from winter to spring increased in southern regions of Korea. Such drought in the spring damages the growth and development of the crops sown in the spring and decreases its quantity. For stable agricultural production in the future, it is necessary to assess vulnerability of the relationship between spring drought and agricultural production as well as to establish appropriate measures accordingly. This research used CCGIS program to perform vulnerability assessment on spring drought based on climate change scenario SRES A1B, A1FI, A1T, A2, B1, B2 and RCP 8.5 in 232 regions in Korea. As a result, Every scenario showed that vulnerability of spring drought decreased from 2000s to 2050s. Ratio of decrease was 37% under SRES scenario but, 3% under RCP 8.5 scenario. Also, for 2050 prediction, every scenario predicted the highest vulnerability in Chungcheongnam-do. However, RCP-8.5 predicted higher vulnerability in Gyeonggi-do than SRES scenario. The reason for overall decrease in vulnerability of agriculture for future spring drought is because the increase of precipitation was predicted. The assessment of vulnerability by different regions showed that choosing suitable scenario is very important factor.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.169-174
• /
• 2018

A total of 594 reservoirs (17%), which are managed by KRC, equipped with earthquake-resistant facilities whereas remaining ones did not. In addition, reservoirs were placed without the effect of geological structures (i.e., fault and lineament). Therefore, development on technique for alleviating the potential hazards by natural disasters along faults and lineaments has required. In addition, an effective reinforcement guideline related to the geological vulnerabilities around reservoirs has required. The final goal of this study is to suggest the effective maintenance for the safety of earth fill dams. A radius 2 km, based on the center of the reservoir in the study area was set as the range of vulnerability impacts of each reservoir. Seismic design, precise safety diagnosis, seismic influence and geological structure were analyzed for the influence range of each reservoir. To classify the vulnerability of geological disasters according to the fault distribution around the reservoir, evaluation index of seismic performance, precise safety diagnosis, seismic influence and geological structure were also developed for each reservoir, which were a component of the vulnerability assessment of geological disasters. As a result, the reservoir with the highest vulnerability to geological disasters in the pilot district was analyzed as Kidong reservoir with an evaluation index of 0.364. Within the radius of 100km from the epicenter of the Pohang earthquake, the number of agricultural infrastructure facilities subject to urgent inspections were 1,180 including reservoirs, pumping stations and intakes. Four reservoirs were directly damaged by earthquake among 724 agricultural reservoirs. As a result of the precise inspection and electrical resistivity survey of the reservoir after the earthquake, it was reported that cracks on the crest of reservoirs were not a cause of concern. However, we are constantly monitoring the safety of agricultural facilities by Pohang aftershocks.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.64 no.5
• /
• pp.53-65
• /
• 2022

Most of the reservoirs managed by the city and county are small and it is difficult to respond to climate change because the drainage area is small and the inflow increases rapidly when a heavy rain occurs. In this study, the current status of reservoirs managed by city and county in Gyeonggi-do was reviewed and flood vulnerability due to climate change was analyzed. In order to analyze the impact of climate change, CMIP6-based future climate scenario provided by IPCC was used, and future rainfall data was established through downscaling of climate scenario (SSP8-8.5). The flood vulnerability of reservoirs due to climate change was evaluated using the concept provided by the IPCC. The future annual precipitation at six weather stations appeared a gradual increase and the fluctuation range of the annual precipitation was also found to increase. As a result of calculating the flood vulnerability index, it was analyzed that the flood vulnerability was the largest in the 2055s period and the lowest in the 2025s period. In the past period (2000s), the number of D and E grade reservoirs was 58, but it was found to increase to 107 in the 2055s period. In 2085s, there were 17 E grade reservoirs, which was more than in the past. Therefore, it is necessary to take measures against the increasing risk of flooding in the future.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.190-203
• /
• 2015

VRI(Vulnerability-Resilience Index), which is defined as a function of 3 variables: climate exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, has been quantified for the case of Typhoon which is one of the extreme weathers that will become more serious as climate change proceeds. Because VRI is only indicating the relative importance of vulnerability between regions, the VRI quantification is prerequisite for the effective adaptation policy for climate in Korea. For this purpose, damage statistics such as amount of damage, occurrence frequency, and major damaged districts caused by Typhoon over the past 20 years, has been employed. According to the VRI definition, we first calculated VRI over every district in the case of both with and without weighting factors of climate exposure proxy variables. For the quantitative estimation of weighting factors, we calculated correlation coefficients (R) for each of the proxy variables against damage statistics of Typhoon, and then used R as weighting factors of proxy variables. The results without applying weighting factors indicates some biases between VRI and damage statistics in some regions, but most of biases has been improved by applying weighting factors. Finally, due to the relations between VRI and damage statistics, we are able to quantify VRI expressed as a unit of KRW, showing that VRI=1 is approximately corresponding to 500 hundred million KRW. This methodology of VRI quantification employed in this study, can be also practically applied to the number of future climate scenario studies over Korea.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
• /
• v.36 no.6_1
• /
• pp.1367-1377
• /
• 2020

The purpose of this study is to assess the seismic vulnerability of buildings in Gyeongju city starting with the earthquake that occurred in the city on September 12, 2016, and produce a seismic vulnerability map. 11 influence factors related to geotechnical, physical, and structural indicators were selected to assess the seismic vulnerability, and these were applied as independent variables. For a dependent variable, location data of the buildings that were actually damaged in the 9.12 Gyeongju Earthquake was used. The assessment model was constructed based on random forest (RF) as a mechanic study method and support vector machine (SVM), and the training and test dataset were randomly selected with a ratio of 70:30. For accuracy verification, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to select an optimum model, and the accuracy of each model appeared to be 1.000 for RF and 0.998 for SVM, respectively. In addition, the prediction accuracy was shown as 0.947 and 0.926 for RF and SVM, respectively. The prediction values of the entire buildings in Gyeongju were derived on the basis of the RF model, and these were graded and used to produce the seismic vulnerability map. As a result of reviewing the distribution of building classes as an administrative unit, Hwangnam, Wolseong, Seondo, and Naenam turned out to be highly vulnerable regions, and Yangbuk, Gangdong, Yangnam, and Gampo turned out to be relatively safer regions.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.89-113
• /
• 2023

This study aimed to identify heat wave vulnerable areas and discuss spatial typology and policy directions through spatial coincidence analysis of heat wave damage. By utilizing the climate change vulnerability assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Spatial Statistics Comparison Analysis, this study examined cities, counties, and districts in South Korea for five years (2015-2019), including 2018, when the heat wave was most extreme. It was determined that the number of heat wave days (exposure) was the most impactful among various factors for heat wave vulnerability. Sensitivity and adaptive capacity to heat waves were found to vary according to regional characteristics. The relationship between heat wave vulnerability and damage was categorized into four types through spatial coherence. Hot to Hot and Cold to Cold types have a positive relationship between vulnerability and damage, while Hot to Cold and Cold to Hot types have a negative relationship. The findings suggest that since different types of regions have distinct characteristics and conditions, policies and research for improvement should be directed to address each region separately. This study may be used as basic data for establishing heat-related policies in the future, as it categorizes regions by considering both heat vulnerability and damage and examines the direction of response by type.