The National Earthquake Risk Management Conference  Policy Sessions

 

Conference Overview

In its series of policy theme discussions, WSSPC’s National Earthquake Risk Management Conference first reviews the significant lessons learned from earlier natural disaster experiences that offer the greatest opportunities for risk reduction today.  Opportunities for further risk reduction derived from the application of emerging technologies are investigated next.  This is followed by examination of methodologies of estimating the extent and dimensions of loss/risk and the means of increasing citizens’ awareness regarding the extent of their exposure.  The potential effectiveness of an array of loss-reduction and mitigation strategies is reviewed to identify priorities that can be employed in future public policies. The current status and potential application of earthquake building codes are considered to seek insights to increase their effectiveness and to evaluate how to make other mitigation strategies more effective.  Finally, a facilitated, interactive discussion will explore the most promising policy issues that conference participants and the Western States Seismic Policy Council can pursue further to endorse and to employ in future earthquake risk management.

 

1. Lessons Learned

As a matter of course, the patterns of loss of life and damage resulting from earthquakes are scrutinized to learn lessons regarding how future losses from seismic events can be reduced.  Residents of Turkey, Taiwan, and Kobe, Japan have recently suffered disasters.  Much of their losses could have been avoided if understanding from past earthquakes had been employed in building design and placement, construction quality control, and land-use planning and regulation.  There are always, however, new lessons to be learned from every damaging earthquake because new insights of construction performance, site condition effects, etc. can be derived from new observations.  These observations, taken together with earlier experiences that have been associated with the impacts of tsunamis in Chile, Hawaii and Japan and volcanic eruptions in the Pacific Northwest, can be used by committed citizens and their governments to manage risk and vulnerability.

Each area in North America with earthquake potential can benefit from lessons learned in previous earthquakes throughout the world.  In this session we will explore the implications of recent lessons learned in managing our risk in the Pacific Northwest and in the Central U.S.  The similarities in tectonic settings as well as the built environment are taken into account.

 

2. New Technologies – New Opportunities

Recently developed and nascent capabilities for disseminating scientific and technical information will facilitate applications for managing earthquakes and other disasters before, during, and after they strike.  These capabilities vary for different natural perils, but both common and unique elements may be found in the case of earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods.  Immediate dissemination of parametric information, including spatial distribution of effects, and rapid loss estimation are some examples of capabilities currently in place in certain locales, and are being considered or are under development in others — including the Pacific Northwest and the central U.S.  Early warning is already online for floods and weather disasters.  Early warning of residents regarding ground shaking from earthquakes in progress and volcanoes experiencing unrest are still evolving technology applications.

    The purposes of this session are to explore common themes and issues among the experiences of the presenters and the participants; to examine lessons that may transfer between different situations; suggest policy direction associated with the opportunities that these new technologies present; and to explore the best manner of assuring that real-time monitoring can fulfill the needs of those utilizing the new technology to reduce natural disaster losses. 

 


3. Strategies to Reduce Impacts of Disasters

Natural disasters cast a significant shadow on national economic growth and well being.  The most severe disasters are infrequent and have profound direct and indirect economic effects that defy traditional actuarial analysis.  Policies necessary to deal with the costs of disasters require:

· Consensus on the best models to determine future disaster costs, given their limitations and uncertainties;

· Methods of increasing the awareness of the public and its policy makers regarding the costs of future disasters in order to achieve commitment to loss-reduction policies;

·Consensus on the roles of state and federal governments, lending institutions, insurers and the business community in implementing policies that can limit disaster costs and hasten post-disaster recovery.

    This session focuses on risk analysis, loss estimation and means to communicate this understanding in the selections and adoption of policies in public and private quarters that will reduce future losses from earthquakes and other perils.

 

4. Identifying Effective Loss Reduction Strategies

The understandings that certain types of disasters will recur and that our built environment has specific components that can fail are not causing comprehensive spontaneous efforts to reduce future losses.  Neither public mitigation policies such as regulating land-use placement of structures, building codes and emergency preparedness, nor private voluntary actions such as insurance, structural retrofitting and personal preparedness are optimally utilized.  Since these mitigation efforts make sense as abstractions, what public and private strategies can encourage more extensive action?  What are the most effective collaborative strategic and tactical roles of the federal, state, and local governments and private institutions in achieving improved future loss reduction?  How can the citizen consensus that is required to create public mitigation policies be reached nationally and locally in regions that are most at risk?  How can we prioritize prospective options?  What are the most promising approaches based upon our experience?

    This session will address these issues and questions based upon experience and analysis of the potential outcomes of new approaches.

 

5. Earthquake Building Codes in the 21st Century

During the last half of the 20th century, construction that has complied with building codes is generally credited with significantly reducing earthquake losses in jurisdictions where codes exist.  Consensus-based engineering judgments used in code development consider past structural performance and estimation of effects of anticipated earthquakes.  Emerging technologies continue to offer challenges to design adequate resistance into new types of construction as well as to offer opportunities to design foundations and other elements that can minimize structural responses.

    At the beginning of the new century, International Building Code 2000 will be the standard across the nation.  The 2000 Code is performance-based so that the level of design resistance can be matched to the post earthquake functional capability intended by the owner.  Avoidance of collapse hazard is no longer the single criterion for the threshold design.

    Mitigation through the medium of building codes in the 21st century can be advanced by: extending the use of codes in more jurisdictions with appreciable risk; improving code compliance and quality of construction; and further improvements in engineering design requirements.

    In this discussion we address the following questions: Why do some exposed jurisdictions have codes and others do not? How can the code development process itself be improved? What are the most promising directions for future code evolution?  How can codes more effectively address retrofitting existing structures?

 

6. Policy Development

Policy Session 6 is an interactive and facilitated forum for discussion of the policy issues emerging from the conference and consideration of actions to be taken.  WSSPC members will consider the outcomes of these discussions in formulating future policy recommendations for the earthquake loss reduction community.