Browsing by Author "Namourah, Zahir"
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- Assessment and mitigation of seismic risk at the urban scale: an application to the historic city center of Leiria, PortugalPublication . Blyth, Anna; Di Napoli, Beatrice; Parisse, Francesco; Namourah, Zahir; Anglade, Elsa; Giatreli, Anna-Maria; Rodrigues, Hugo; Ferreira, Tiago MiguelThe implementation of a culture of seismic risk preparedness is becoming increasingly critical in Europe as the building stock ages and the awareness about seismic risk rises. In this context, the assessment of the seismic vulnerability of existing buildings, followed by the implementation of appropriate retrofitting solutions, can help to substantially reduce the levels of physical damage and economic impact of future events. The central region of Portugal is particularly susceptible to large seismic events and is characterized by the prevalence of historic masonry buildings. This work aims to validate assessment methods for the risk of historical city centers in order to propose management strategies for municipalities and assess the economic impact of large-scale seismic retrofitting. To do this, an application of these methods was performed on the historical city center of Leiria. An in-depth inspection was performed of the entire center and the results were compiled into a database. Using an index-based seismic vulnerability assessment approach, a vulnerability assessment was made for each building. Based on vulnerability and predicted damage, estimates of human and economic losses were made for the city center before and after retrofitting to justify interventions on a broad scale.
- Seismic damage scenarios for the Historic City Center of Leiria, Portugal: Analysis of the impact of different seismic retrofitting strategies on emergency planningPublication . Anglade, Elsa; Giatreli, Anna-Maria; Blyth, Anna; Di Napoli, Beatrice; Parisse, Francesco; Namourah, Zahir; Rodrigues, Hugo; Ferreira, Tiago MiguelAs a result of several impactful events, the focus of the international community on the effects of natural hazards in urban areas has been increasing in recent years. The framework for research and innovation on urban risk reduction and urban resilience is presently defined by several technical and societal challenges at different levels. In fact, urban risk is a very complex multi-dimensional matrix that can involve multiple elements at risk, multiple hazards, multiple temporal scales, and multiple sources of vulnerability. Understanding the impacts and interactions between these elements is an essential step towards the development of more effective risk reduction strategies, particularly in historical city centers, which, due to their characteristics, are even more demanding. Within this framework, the present paper takes advantage of a large-scale seismic vulnerability assessment method, specially developed to assess the vulnerability of masonry façade walls, to evaluate the vulnerability and to develop damage scenarios for the Historic City Center of Leiria. Based on these scenarios, obtained for the relevant seismic intensities of the region, a variety of probabilistic-based outputs related to emergency planning (inaccessible urban areas, isolated people, and possible evacuation routes) were generated and comprehensively discussed. Finally, the potential benefit resulting from the application of different seismic retrofitting strategies is also investigated, both in terms of expected damages and evacuation scenarios.