Toward seismic risk management using acceptable risk criteria and

mitigation solutions performance.

C. Martin1, F. Dunand1, C. Hauss2, T. Abelli3

1
GEOTER International, Espace 890, Route Nationale 96, 13360 Roquevaire, France.
2
BET HAUSS, 18 Lotissement Ti Bambou, 97122 BAIE-MAHAULT, Guadeloupe, France.
3
Région GUADELOUPE - Avenue Paul Lacavé - 97100 Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, France.

ABSTRACT:

To answer to the request of urban planers or real estate administrators regarding the seismic risk
management issues, the civil engineers pool GEOTER/HAUSS/GEOMAT implemented an original
and powerful approach, from the point of view of the methods and risk management tools.

This approach exploits probabilistic seismic scenarios based on local hazard and buildings
vulnerability assessments, which are performed for each building according to methods and numerical
models, which have now been implemented by the consortium on more than 1.500.000 m² of
buildings. The consequences and potential losses are quantified in terms of probability of victim’s
numbers, level damages and economic losses, which leads to identify retrofiting priorities thanks to
acceptable risk criteria.

The risk management analysis of each building leads to different solutions, the cost of which are
estimated. The performance of the solutions is evaluated in terms of technical gain and economic
analysis, authorizing a classification according to a cost/benefit performance.

This overall methodology is coupled with simulations tools and database requesting GIS tools. The
urban planers or real estate administrators thus benefits from a decision aid tool, which, toward its
economic constraints and the seismic risk assessment, enables him to choose, budget and plans the
risk mitigation actions.

In the proposed case study, the methodology is applied to a public high school buildings park of
Guadeloupe (French Antilles), which is composed by 600 buildings constructed from 1850 to 2006. It
allowed to evaluate the vulnerability and risk of each ones and to identify the ones affected by the
highest risk levels. The seismic reinforcement assessment provided the seismic mitigation cost.
Different action plans can now be defined using different definitions of the acceptable risk.

Beyond the results, this study raises more general questions about the decision criteria leading to the
choice of risk mitigation actions, the solution of which involves to clearly define the concept of
acceptable risk and to develop a consistent legislation to treat the existing building stock in seismic
regions. The case studies already developed in French Antilles are helpful to improve the national
seismic mitigation policy.

KEYWORDS:
Risk, vulnerability, scenario, reinforcement, priorities, risk acceptability.