LESSLOSS

Prof. Emily So

This is a European Integrated Project focusing on Risk Mitigation for Earthquakes and Landslides that relies on the active participation of 46 European partners from both academia and industry. The project aims to provide training opportunities to European professionals seeking to gain knowledge on the most recent advances in the field of seismic and landslides risk mitigation.

As project coordinators for Subproject 10, our main role is in coordinating the development by the project partners of loss modelling software for cities at risk from earthquakes; and to coordinate the project’s acytivities in examining different loss reduction strategies through discussions with the city authorities and civil protection groups. Our main technical input has been to develop better casualty rates to be used in the loss modelling software for the three target cities Lisbon, Thessaloniki and Istanbul. The lack of reliable casualty data was identified at the start of the project to be a prohibiting factor. Our work has focused particularly on distributions of injuries and deaths in different damage states of local building stock by reviewing global and local earthquake casualty data.

The aim of the sub-project is to create a tool, based on state-of-the-art loss modelling software, to provide strong, quantified statements about the benefits and costs of a range of possible mitigation actions, to support decision-making by city and regional authorities for seismic risk mitigation strategies; and beyond this, to contribute to a seismic risk mitigation policy for future implementation at European level.

Our partners include the Kandilli Observatory in Istanbul (KOERI), the National Laboratory in Civil Engineering in Lisbon (LNEC), the Aristotle University in Thessaloniki (AUTh), National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) in Italy, University of Surrey and also MunichRe. Further information can be found on the web portal of the project: www.lessloss.org