Vrancea Earthquakes Tectonics Hazard And Risk Mitigation

This volume contains the most relevant peer-reviewed papers presented at The First International Workshop on Vrancea Earthquakes, held in Bucharest on November 1-4, 1997. Strong earthquakes in the Romanian Vrancea area have caused a high toll of casualties and extensive damage over the last several centuries. With a moment magnitude of 7.4, the 1977 earthquake caused more than 1500 casualties, the majority of them in Bucharest. The contributions address key problems of seismotectonics of the Vrancea area and related strong ground motion, hazard assessment, site effects and microzonation, structural damage and earthquake resistant design, risk assessment and disaster management from an international and regional perspective. This list of topics shows the diverse contributions from the multidisciplinary fields of geosciences, geophysics, seismology, geology, civil engineering, city planning, and emergency relief practices. This book is of value for scientists interested in earthquake hazard and seismic risk research as well as for seismologists, geophysicists and Earth scientists. It is also useful for authorities responsible for public safety and natural hazard mitigation plans and for insurance companies.

This book is devoted to diverse aspects of earthquake researches, especially to new achievements in seismicity that involves geosciences, assessment, and mitigation. Chapters contain advanced materials of detailed engineering investigations, which can help more clearly appreciate, predict, and manage different earthquake processes. Different research themes for diverse areas in the world are developed here, highlighting new methods of studies that lead to new results and models, which could be helpful for the earthquake risk. The presented and developed themes mainly concern wave's characterization and decomposition, recent seismic activity, assessment-mitigation, and engineering techniques. The book provides the state of the art on recent progress in earthquake engineering and management. The obtained results show a scientific progress that has an international scope and, consequently, should open perspectives to other still unresolved interesting aspects.

The NATO Science for Peace Project SfP-980468 Harmonization of Seismic Hazard and Risk Reduction in Countries Influenced by Vrancea Earthquakes was an ambitious attempt to harmonize the seismic-hazard assessment in Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania, and provide the guidelines for seismic risk reduction in the target countries. Related to the study of intermediate-depth Vrancea earthquakes, it became operational in 2005. The project co-coordinators were as follows: • Prof. Güney Özcebe, Ankara, Turkey; • Dr. Anton Zaicenco, Chisinau, Moldova; • Dr. Iolanda Craifaleanu, Bucharest, Romania; • Prof. Ivanka Paskaleva, Sofia, Bulgaria. The project has brought together leading research personalities in the area of earthquake engineering, seismology and earth physics from several countries for brainstorming sessions, informal discussions, and exchanges of ideas. One of its key components was an upgrade of the strong-motion seismic networks of the countries-participants, which created a foundation for a long-term collaboration. A number of papers have been published as a result of the work conducted under this project. The present book contains the Proceedings of the Closing Workshop for Project SfP-980468, which was organized in Chisinau, Moldova on May 20, 2008. From hazard analyses to protection of the historical buildings, from study of the dynamic properties of the soft soils to paleoseismology, there are few areas of interest that remain untouched. Research from the NATO members and partner countries in South-Eastern Europe that forms the components of NATO Project SfP-980468 has made solid contributions to the Workshop theme.

​The classical field dealing with earthquakes is called “earthquake engineering” and considered to be a branch of structural engineering. In projects dealing with strategies for earthquake risk mitigation, urban planning approaches are often neglected. Today interventions are needed on a city, rather than a building, scale. This work deals with the impact of earthquakes, including also a broader view on multihazards in urban areas. Uniquely among other works in the field, particular importance is given to urban planning issues, in conservation of heritage and emergency management. Multicriteria decision making and broad participation of those affected by disasters are included.

These proceedings include most of the available information on this major seismic event and its consequences. With an estimated moment magnitude of 7.7 and a heavy toll in terms of human and economic losses, it ranks as the largest intermediate-depth earthquake in Europe in the twentieth century. Nevertheless, because of the difficult conditions in the 1940s, the lessons learnt after the Vrancea earthquake were not extensively shared with the international scientific community and thus, this book fills a gap in the literature discussing the knowledge acquired after major disasters. Past experience together with current understanding of the 1940 Vrancea earthquake are presented along with the latest information on Romanian seismicity, seismic hazard and risk assessment, and seismic evaluation and rehabilitation of buildings and structures. Moreover, it includes excerpts from Romanian post-disaster reports and textbooks concerning the earthquake.

This book contains the best contributions presented during the 6th National Conference on Earthquake Engineering and the 2nd National Conference on Earthquake Engineering and Seismology - 6CNIS & 2CNISS, that took place on June 14-17, 2017 in Bucharest - Romania, at the Romanian Academy and Technical University of Civil Engineering of Bucharest. The book offers an updated overview of seismic hazard and risk assessment activities, with an emphasis on recent developments in Romania, a very challenging case study because of its peculiar intermediate-depth seismicity and evolutive code-compliant building stock. Moreover, the book collects input of renowned scientists and professionals from Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey and United Kingdom.The content of the book focuses on seismicity of Romania, geotechnical earthquake engineering, structural analysis and seismic design regulations, innovative solutions for seismic protection of building structures, seismic risk evaluation, resilience-based assessment of structures and management of emergency situations. The sub-chapters consist of the best papers of 6CNIS & 2CNISS selected by the International Advisory and Scientific Committees. The book is targeted at researchers and experts in seismic hazard and risk, evaluation and rehabilitation of buildings and structures, insurers and re-insurers, and decision makers in the field of emergency situations and recovery activities.

In many past and recent earthquakes it has been shown that the local conditions and, in particular, the local geology have a great influence on the observed seismic ground motion and, consequently, on the damage distribution in housing, industrial stock, and life-lines. Seismic microzoning is the usual procedure to have these local effects taken into account for engineering design and land-use planning, being a useful tool for earthquake risk mitigation. This volume presents a collection of papers mainly originated from a workshop on Seismic Microzoning, organized during the 23rd General Assembly of the European Geophysical Society (EGS) in Nice, France in April 1998. The workshop dealt with various geophysical tools for analysing the effects of the local soils of subsurface geology on seismic ground motion, namely the methods using experimental data such as microtremors, and the theoretical/numerical 1-D and 2-D modelling methods. Additional contributions discussing techniques for characterising soil properties, microzoning applications to several urban areas, and others were added to the volume to broaden this important topic.