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Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre Hosts Urban Seismic Risk Workshop

• Shaking in the heart of Europe - 650th Anniversary of the Basel 1356 Earthquake (Dr. Milan Simic, Benfield)
  There has been much scientific debate about the source and magnitude of the 1356 Basel earthquake which is an important reminder that Europe has a high density of people and property in areas susceptible to earthquake risk. Calculations of the potential losses from a repeat of the event today are now possible using earthquake loss models.
• Engineering issues in urban seismic risk (Professor Adrian Chandler, BUHRC, University College London)
  An explanation of some general issues on seismic risk in dense urban areas with specific examples of Hong Kong. It is argued that a broader view is required on seismic hazard estimation, to include explicit consideration of distant, large-M earthquakes. This is especially the case in regions of low to moderate seismicity, where near-field hazard may not provide the worst-case scenario event.
• China: seismic hazard and risk and Shanghai futures (Dr. Paul Burton, BUHRC University of East Anglia)
  Mass construction and rapid urbanisation is increasing China's exposure to seismic threats. There is an increased awareness of the need to understand how vulnerable people and property are to future earthquakes. In the light of China's continuing boom, further progress in the assessment of seismic risk is of paramount importance.
• Seismic hazard and risk assessment in South Africa (Dr. Andrzej Kijko, Council for Geoscience, South Africa)
  Modellers can face many problems during seismic hazard and risk analysis. Techniques for their solutions providing a coherent methodology for effective assessment of the risk and the application of the techniques are presented using examples of South Africa and the New Madrid Seismic Zone.
• Urban earthquake risk in Istanbul (Professor Eser Durakal, Bogazici University, Istanbul)
  The size of Istanbul as the economic, industrial and financial hub of Turkey and the high population and number of buildings necessitates the evaluation of direct and indirect losses from seismic events. The likely consequences of a large seismic event near Istanbul on buildings, industry and on the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP) are evaluated.
• Forward modelling of earthquake and tsunami hazard (Professor John McCloskey, University of Ulster)
  The devastating December 26th Sumatran earthquake triggered a tsunami that took over a quarter of a million lives. This and a second major quake on the same fault, in March 2005, has not - however - released all the accumulated strain. Future major earthquakes in the region are forecast to generate tsunami and their effects can be modelled.
• A displacement-based method for earthquake loss modelling at variable geographical scales (Dr. Helen Crowley, University of Pavia, Italy)
  For many applications, including decision-making processes within the insurance and reinsurance industries, it is necessary to estimate the effects of many, or even all, possible future earthquake scenarios that could impact upon an urban area. Multiple earthquake scenarios, used to generate the ground motions at all sites of interest, and defined through Monte Carlo simulations based on the seismicity model, is the most conceptually sound method to represent the seismic hazard in a loss model when considering the effects at multiple sites simultaneously.
• Assessing the seismic vulnerability of urban areas (Dr. Tiziana Rossetto, BUHRC, University College London)
  In most cases it is not the ground shaking itself that causes life and economic loss from earthquakes but the collapse or damage of buildings and infrastructure that are too "weak" to resist the ground shaking. Tools can be used to evaluate a building's vulnerability to earthquakes and their limitations.