Scenario-based multi-risk assessment from existing single-hazard vulnerability models. An application to consecutive earthquakes and tsunamis in Lima, Peru

Abstract

Multi-hazard risk assessments for building portfolios exposed to earthquake shaking followed by a tsunami are usually based on empirical vulnerability models calibrated on post-event surveys of damaged buildings. The applicability of these models cannot easily be extrapolated to other regions of larger/smaller events. Moreover, the quantitative evaluation of the damages related to each of the hazard types (disaggregation) is impossible. To investigate cumulative damage on extended building portfolios, this study proposes an alternative and modular method to probabilistically integrate sets of single-hazard vulnerability models that are constantly being developed and calibrated by experts from various research fields to be used within a multi-risk context. This method is based on the proposal of state-dependent fragility functions for the triggered hazard to account for the pre-existing damage and the harmonisation of building classes and damage states through their taxonomic characterisation, which is transversal to any hazard-dependent vulnerability. This modular assemblage also allows us to separate the economic losses expected for each scenario on building portfolios subjected to cascading hazards. We demonstrate its application by assessing the economic losses expected for the residential building stock of Lima, Peru, a megacity commonly exposed to consecutive earthquake and tsunami scenarios. We show the importance of accounting for damage accumulation on extended building portfolios while observing a dependency between the earthquake magnitude and the direct economic losses derived for each hazard scenario. For the commonly exposed residential building stock of Lima exposed to both perils, we find that classical tsunami empirical fragility functions lead to underestimations of predicted losses for lower magnitudes (Mw) and large overestimations for larger Mw events in comparison to our state-dependent models and cumulative-damage method.