Prepared by the Earthquake Investigation Committee of the Technical Council of Lifeline Earthquake Engineering of ASCE. On August 17, 1999, the Izmit (Kocaeli) earthquake tore through Kocaeli, Turkey, resulting in more than 15,000 deaths and 27,000 injuries; 200,000 people were left homeless. The electric power system, nearly destroyed, sustained more than US$70 million in damage. Another earthquake on November 12, to the east of Izmit at Duzce, added to the lifeline systems damage, impacting the communications system, water and wastewater system, ports, railway, road, and bridges. This TCLEE Monograph provides information for practitioners to improve the performance of the lifeline systems. Topics include: seismology, geology, and geotechnical issues; electric power; airports; telecommunications; water and wastewater; transportation (highways and bridges); liquid fuel facilities; railway; ports; hospitals; social impacts; and emergency response and recovery.

Structural control represents a high technology proposal for civil engineering innovation. This book collects the invited papers presented at the 3rd International Workshop on Structural Control. The geographical coverage and the high quality of the invited speaker's contributions make the book a unique update in the areas of intelligent structures, structural control and smart materials for civil and infrastructure engineers. Contents: An Identification Algorithm for Feedback Active Control (N D Anh); Application of Control Techniques to Masonry and Monumental Constructions (A Baratta et al.); Monitoring of Infrastructures in the Marine Environment (A Del Grosso); Health Monitoring and Optimum Maintenance Programs for Structures in Seismic Zones (L Esteva & E Heredia-Zavoni); Outline of Safety Evaluation of Structural Response-Control Buildings and Smart Structural Systems as Future Trends (K Yoshikazu & T Hiroyuki); Recent Developments in Smart Structures Research in India (S Narayanan & V Balamurugan); Perspective of Application of Active Damping of Cable Structures (A Preumont & F Bossens); Parametric and Nonparametric Adaptive Identification of Nonlinear Structural Systems (A W Smyth et al.); Active Control Requirements in Railway Projects (H Wenzel); and other papers. Readership: Civil engineers and scientists working in the areas of intelligent systems and smart materials.

Fragility functions constitute an emerging tool for the probabilistic seismic risk assessment of buildings, infrastructures and lifeline systems. The work presented in this book is a partial product of a European Union funded research project SYNER-G (FP7 Theme 6: Environment) where existing knowledge has been reviewed in order to extract the most appropriate fragility functions for the vulnerability analysis and loss estimation of the majority of structures and civil works exposed to earthquake hazard. Results of other relevant European projects and international initiatives are also incorporated in the book. In several cases new fragility and vulnerability functions have been developed in order to better represent the specific characteristics of European elements at risk. Several European and non-European institutes and Universities collaborated efficiently to capitalize upon existing knowledge. State-of-the-art methods are described, existing fragility curves are reviewed and, where necessary, new ones are proposed for buildings, lifelines, transportation infrastructures as well as for utilities and critical facilities. Taxonomy and typology definitions are synthesized and the treatment of related uncertainties is discussed. A fragility function manager tool and fragility functions in electronic form are provided on extras.springer.com. Audience The book aims to be a standard reference on the fragility functions to be used for the seismic vulnerability and probabilistic risk assessment of the most important elements at risk. It is of particular interest to earthquake engineers, scientists and researchers working in the field of earthquake risk assessment, as well as the insurance industry, civil protection and emergency management agencies.

Natech Risk Assessment and Management: Reducing the Risk of Natural-Hazard Impact on Hazardous Installations covers the entire spectrum of issues pertinent to Natech risk assessment and management. After a thorough introduction of the topic that includes definitions of terms, authors Krausmann, Cruz, and Salzano discuss various examples of international frameworks and provide a detailed view of the implementation of Natech Risk Management in the EU and OECD. There is a dedicated chapter on natural-hazard prediction and measurement from an engineering perspective, as well as a consideration of the impact of climate change on Natech risk. The authors also discuss selected Natech accidents, including recent examples, and provide specific 'lessons learned' from each, as well as an analysis of all essential elements of Natech risk assessment, such as plant layout, substance hazards, and equipment vulnerability. The final section of the book is dedicated to the reduction of Natech risk, including structural and organizational prevention and mitigation measures, as well as early warning issues and emergency foreword planning. - Teaches chemical engineers and safety managers how to safeguard chemical processing plants and pipelines against natural disasters - Includes international regulations and explains how to conduct a natural hazards risk assessment, both of which are supported by examples and case studies - Discusses a broad range of hazards and the multidisciplinary aspects of risk assessment in a detailed and accessible style

There is a perennial gap between theory and practice, between academia and active professionals in the field of disaster management. This gap means that valuable lessons are not learned and people die or suffer as a result. This book opens a dialogue between theory and practice. It offers vital lessons to practitioners from scholarship on natural hazards, disaster risk management and reduction and developments studies, opening up new insights in accessible language with practical applications. It also offers to academics the insights of the enormous experience practitioners have accumulated, highlighting gaps in research and challenging assumptions and theories against the reality of experience. Disaster Management covers issues in all phases of the disaster cycle: preparedness, prevention, response and recovery. It also addresses cross-cutting issues including political, economic and social factors that influence differential vulnerability, and key areas of practice such as vulnerability mapping, early warning, infrastructure protection, emergency management, reconstruction, health care and education, and gender issues. The team of international authors combine their years of experience in research and the field to offer vital lessons for practitioners, academics and students alike.

In 1999, two earthquakes occurred in the Istanbul-Marmara region of Turkey and the Athens-Corinth region of Greece, and an increased risk of further events caused great concern among the earth science community. This book presents and discusses the latest results from studies of the Izmit-Düzce and Athens earthquakes and assesses the data that are available and relevant to the geology, seismology, tectonics, geodesy and other fields related to earthquake studies and to evaluate earthquake hazard potential.

Coordinated relief to the affected areas needs to be given as soon as possible, so to minimize further nefarious effects. In such scenarios it is vital that communications between interested parties, i.e. relief and security groups, are established as quickly and as easily as possible, ideally in a plug & play or zero configuration fashion.

This special issue of Pure and Applied Geophysics is the second of two volumes containing an augmented collection of papers originating from the Evison Symposium on Seismogenesis and Earthquake Forecasting held in Wellington, New Zealand, in February 2008. The volumes honor Frank Evison's interest in earthquake generation and forecasting. This volume includes descriptions of earthquake forecasting test centers through the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP) program and the first results from the Regional Earthquake Likelihood Model (RELM) experiment in California. Other papers discuss methods of testing predictions, in particular by the use of error diagrams. There is discussion of prediction methodologies using seismicity, including an application of the statistical technique of Hidden Markov Models to identify changes in seismicity and a new technique for identifying precursory quiescence. Several papers employ other data besides seismicity, such as geologically determined faults, calculations of stress changes via Coulomb stress modeling, tomographically determined velocity structure, groundwater, crustal deformation, and comparisons of real earthquakes to synthetic seismicity determined from hypothesized earthquake physics. One paper focuses on the prediction of human casualties in the event that a large earthquake occurs anywhere on the globe. The volume will be useful to students and professional researchers who are interested in the earthquake preparation process and in converting that understanding into forecasts of earthquake occurrence.