Return to IASPEI Home Page / Projects / EMI

Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative
Part 3

Mission, Structure, Tasks, and Activities

Contents

• Origin and Definition
• Mission Statement
• General Objectives
• Short- to Medium-Term Activities
• Communication Program
• Strategic Program
• Research and Technology Developments
  • Theme 1 (Developing Technologies)
  • Theme 2 (Determining Vulnerability)
  • Theme 3 (Assessing Sustainability)
  • Theme 4 (Promoting Mitigation)
• Proposed Organizational Structure

Origin and Definition

The Earthquake and Megacities Initiative (EMI) was created as an outcome of the First Earthquakes and Megacities Workshop, which took place in Seeheim, Germany between September 1 and 4, 1997. A megacity is defined here to be any metropolitan area containing several million inhabitants.

Mission Statement

EMI will be a worldwide undertaking aimed at promoting and coordinating multidisciplinary research related to the mitigation of the social, economic and environmental impact of earthquake disasters on megacities. This initiative is envisioned as a first step towards developing a broader program aimed at reducing the effects of all natural disasters on megacities.

General Objectives

EMI's primary objective will be to promote and coordinate natural science, engineering and social science research aimed at developing practical solutions for the assessment and mitigation of earthquake risk to megacities. Consultation with emergency response personnel, urban planners and community leaders will be a key element of the strategy. To accomplish its primary objective, EMI will work along several avenues, including:

• identifying opportunities for research funding and disseminating this information;
• forming multidisciplinary teams to improve synergism for interdisciplinary research;
• reviewing, synthesizing and distributing research results and findings;
• promoting partnerships between researchers and emergency response personnel; researchers and community leaders; researchers and policy makers; researchers and international development agencies; researchers and non-governmental organizations;
• encouraging megacities research in international scientific and technical forums;
• improving the expertise of practitioners and risk mitigation advocates;
• coordinating actions with other organizations involved in natural hazard mitigation;
• serving as a "clearing house" for information related to earthquake risk to megacities.

EMI will be a forum for individual researchers, practitioners, policy makers and community leaders involved in assessing and advocating assessments of earthquake risk to megacities. It will be a key participant in global efforts to mitigate the effects of earthquakes on megacities.

Short- to Medium-Term Activities

Short- to medium-term actions of EMI will be directed towards maintaining the momentum generated during the First Earthquakes and Megacities Workshop, collecting opinions, and acting on workshop recommendations. Specific short- to medium-term activities will include:

• establishing the EMI Secretariat and clarifying the plan of actions suggested by the workshop participants;
• undertaking an extensive consultation process;
• identifying potential funding sources to run the EMI Secretariat and initiate projects;
• developing a new European Science Foundation program aimed at producing damage and loss scenarios for large urban centers within Europe, including the Mediterranean area (European geoscientists and engineers met on the evening of September 2, 1997, to establish general guidelines for such a proposal, a first version of which has been submitted to ESF).

Communication Program

Improved communication is widely regarded as a key element in any endeavor to reduce the effects of earthquakes on megacities. Researchers working in different fields should not only improve their level of interaction in multidisciplinary forums, but should also learn to share knowledge with emergency planners and managers, politicians, the media and the general public. Specific activities that relate to improving communications will include:

• constructing an EMI page on the World-Wide Web (http://www-megacities.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de/);
• considering issues related to publishing an EMI newsletter (e.g. scope, cost, distribution);
• working with the United Nations University (UNU) to ensure rapid publication and wide distribution of a reviewed set of proceedings resulting from the First Earthquakes and Megacities Workshop (UNU has agreed, in principle, to fund such a project);
• organizing a follow-up "Earthquakes and Megacities" workshop to be held in a megacity, preferably in a developing country.

Strategic Program

Mitigating the effects of earthquakes on megacities is an enormous task. Nevertheless, effective mitigation will be promoted by initiating:

• a twin-city program in which personnel from megacities with advanced knowledge on mitigation procedures would furnish information and would share their knowledge with personnel from megacities that do not have similar levels of experience and/or expertise; examples might include twinning cities from the following regions: (a)Êsouthern Europe with northern Africa, (b) North America with Central and South America, (c) western Pacific Ocean with eastern Indian Ocean; it is anticipated that the twin-city program can be integrated with the Associate City-Program of RADIUS;
• a regional-centers program in which megacities with active mitigation programs would contribute expertise to large areas and would provide the motivation to build partnerships with managers of large metropolitan centers, international development agencies and risk mitigation advocates; the objective is to encourage the development of local capacities; examples of competent regional centers might include: (a) Bogota for Central America, (b) Quito for South America, (c) Istanbul for central Asia:
• a program of high impact studies, in which seismic experts, local practitioners and local policy makers of an urban area will be brought together to discuss earthquake risk and risk mitigation possibilities .

Research and Technology Developments

Several multidisciplinary research projects will be launched. A set of assessment tools for urban planners and emergency managers will result from these projects. Such tools will facilitate the implementation of measures to mitigate earthquake risk. The research projects may be classified under four fundamental themes as follows:

Theme 1 (Developing Technologies)

• collecting seismicity and appropriate geotechnical data, including information on historical seismology and paleoseismology;
• encouraging the installation of local seismographic and strong-motion networks for establishing: (i) seismicity patterns (used to estimate time-dependent seismic hazard), (ii)Êearly warning systems, (iii) methodologies for estimating rapidly the distribution of post-event damage severity, (iv) correlations between ground motion and building damage;
• constructing seismic zonation maps for major metropolitan areas of the world;
• modelling ground motions;
• making geodetic measurements of strain accumulation using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS).

Theme 2 (Determining Vulnerability)

• creating a "catalog" of relevant knowledge for each susceptible megacity and developing an earthquake risk classification "index" to help communicate the levels of risk that affect each city;
• performing for each susceptible megacity a standardized inventory of buildings, lifelines, transportation systems and critical facilities;
• employing a network (or system) representation of each susceptible megacity's infrastructure to improve our understanding of its vulnerability to inter-dependencies of failures (e.g. inter-dependencies of critical facilities on lifeline systems);
• reviewing the effectiveness of building codes and their implementation;
• developing damage and loss estimation models suitable for megacities;
• modeling disaster scenarios to check emergency response capabilities and readiness;

Theme 3 (Assessing Sustainability)

• examining the effects of cultural differences in perceptions and responses to risk;
• studying earthquake constraints on the long-term sustainability of megacities - such studies should include the role played by shanty towns and squatters and should account for the risk, economic and social factors that define a megacity;
• investigating the technical, social, political, historical and economic factors that would allow earthquake mitigation measures to be integrated in urban planning policy at different government levels through voluntary actions, legislation, education, training and/or cultural attitude changes; examine the impact of incentives, sanctions and other "instruments".

Theme 4 (Promoting Mitigation)

• designing regional-dependent educational programs aimed at earthquake preparedness and earthquake awareness - these programs should target such diverse audiences as emergency planners, policy makers and the general public;
• training and mobilizing local interest groups in order to enhance local capacities, sustain awareness and increase community participation,
• implementing special procedures to protect cultural heritage items and monuments;
• developing new construction methodologies for non-engineered buildings and new training programs for local builders;
• enhancing seismic code provisions to encourage cost-effective retrofitting.

Proposed Organizational Structure

To be established during the first Scientific Steering Committee to be held in September, 1998.

The Secretariat will coordinate EMI's activities and implement its general policies. Currently, Prof. Friedemann Wenzel (Karlsruhe University) and Dr. Fouad Bendimerad (Risk Management Solutions) serve as Secretaries on behalf of ILP and WSSI. ILP and WSSI have provided initial funding to cover partially the provisional EMI Secretariat's expenses at a rate of $5,000 per year from each organization. It is envisioned that other researchers and practitioners will join the EMI Secretariat upon nomination by the Board. Functions (Secretary, Treasurer, etc.) can then be formally assigned.

Return to IASPEI Home Page / Projects / EMI

Last modified: October 30, 2007
Maintained by: Alice Walker abw@bgs.ac.uk at the British Geological Survey