Caesar II: An Italian decision support tool for the seismic risk. The case study of Torre Pellice, Villar Pellice and Pinerolo municipalities

Abstract

Italy is a country with high seismic risk; however, a broad seismic classification of the national territory has been introduced only in the last twenty years. Therefore, most of the existing buildings stock do not comply with the current anti-seismic codes. In recent years, the seismic events that occurred in Italy have highlighted the complexity of emergency management and the great challenge for public authorities called to answer to the post-event reconstruction and the planning of effective risk prevention and mitigation measures implemented in "peacetime". In this perspective, the CAESAR II project (Controlling, Mitigating and Managing Earthquake Emergency: Cost-Benefit and Multi-criteria Analysis of Impact Scenarios for Risk Reduction and Increased Resilience) has been developed as a decision support system for public authorities engaged in the development of seismic disaster risk reduction plans. CAESAR II includes a module for the simulation of retrofitting measures applied at the municipal scale, integrating different categories of anti-seismic and energy improvement measures based on the vulnerability analysis of the existing buildings stock. The CAESAR II tool's core is the module for evaluating "seismic impact scenarios" based on the end-users' hazard. The output of the model includes information on expected damage levels for buildings (from D0-no damage to D5- total collapse) and population (dead, injured and homeless). Impact scenarios can be customised according to the minimum unit of analysis assumed (municipality or 250x250m square mesh grid) and the availability of exposure data (from national census data or survey on the spot building by building according to the PLINIVS form). Scenarios include geo-referenced data managed by geo-servers to exchange data in a format compliant with OGC (Open Gis Consortium) standards and the European INSPIRE Directive. Simulation results can be further processed through the Multi-Criteria and Cost-Benefit Analysis modules to support the comparative assessment of alternative seismic and energy measurements. In this work, the procedures included in CAESAR II are described and a case study is reported. It concerns the analysis of the expected damage assessment on buildings and population for three municipalities in northern Italy, Torre Pellice, Villar Pellice and Pinerolo (Piedmont Region).