Official data on the economic consequences of the 2012 Emilia-Romagna earthquake: a first analysis of database SFINGE

Abstract

In May 2012, a series of medium–high intensity earthquakes struck a highly industrialized area of central-northern Italy and in particular the Emilia-Romagna region. As a consequence, there were 28 casualties, numerous injuries, and vast damage to thousands of civil structures, infrastructures and industrial facilities. After that, the regional political authority, Regione Emilia-Romagna, spent billions of euro of state funding on reconstruction; as of 2018, almost EUR 1.9 billion was granted to business sector. In order to be able to fairly distribute financial aid to damaged productive facilities, a vast information system was created and data were stored in a database called SFINGE. Collected information regards losses, induced costs, reimbursements paid by the insurance companies, and money finally granted by the state. In this paper, we present the results of a study we conducted on the database; the requests for public funding were accessed and examined within a special scientific agreement between Regione Emilia-Romagna and RWTH Aachen University. Study results will be useful in predicting costs, economic losses and insurance refunds for business activities damaged by seismic events. Public authorities can learn too, as the paper presents a way of accounting consequences and granting public money that proved to work effectively. Finally, reported data can be included within the existing theoretical framework of Performance Based Earthquake Engineering, significantly contributing to the definition of seismic performance assessment tools.