Site-Effect Model for Wide-area Seismic Damage Assessment

Site-Effect Model for Wide-area Seismic Damage Assessment

Wide-area earthquake loss assessment has been widely used in disaster prevention planning and emergency response drills to improve various aspects of risk-management feasibility and effectiveness. When evaluating earthquake damage to engineering structures over a wide area, it is necessary to estimate the local seismic hazards for each location. Estimating ground-motion intensity is the basis for evaluating other threats such as soil liquefaction or landslide potential. Because geological data such as s30 V (averaged shear-wave velocity to a depth of 30 m) and 1.0 Z (depth at which shear-wave velocity is 1000 m/s) are not usually available for large areas, the site-effect model used in ground-motion prediction equations is not suitable for seismic hazard analysis or loss assessment for large areas. Based on the Taiwan Earthquake Loss Estimation System (TELES), this study combines new ground-motion prediction equations and groundmotion databases in Taiwan to develop and assess a site-effect model suitable for wide-area seismic damage assessment.