Background

The TREQ Project is designed to demonstrate how earthquake hazard and risk assessment can inform decision makers in the development of risk reduction policies, as well as how earthquake risk can be properly communicated to stakeholders and the public in general.

Previous efforts by GEM during the last six years focused on the assessment of seismic hazard and risk in South America (SARA) and the Caribbean and Central America (CCARA). These projects resulted in open hazard, exposure, and vulnerability information and models that have been used extensively to estimate seismic hazard, and the economic and human losses in the region.

Despite these encouraging developments in the region, there is a need to leverage national datasets and models to develop detailed hazard and risk assessments at the urban level that can be used directly to design disaster risk reduction measures, along with the need to continuously improve local capacity to assess seismic risk and to consider other factors contributing to the overall impact (e.g. damage to infrastructure and secondary hazards).

Objectives and Expected Outputs

This program is organized into two main parts:

• seismic hazard and risk assessment at urban scale in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region, and

• improvement of training, educational and communication materials.

The goal of the first part is to develop capacity for urban earthquake risk assessment in Latin America, while the second part will produce training, educational and communication materials that will enhance the understanding of earthquake risk worldwide.

Collaborators

Ecuador

• Municipalidad de Quito

• Escuela Politécnica Nacional (EPN)

• Instituto Geofísico (IG)

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Dominican Republic

• Servicio Geológico Nacional (SGN)

• Oficina Nacional de Evaluación Sísmica y Vulnerabilidad de Infraestructuras y Edificaciones (ONESVIE)

• Comité Técnico Nacional (CTN)

• Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (PUCMM)

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Colombia

• Servicio Geológico Colombiano (SGC)

• Departamento Administrativo de Planeación Municipal (DAPM), Cali

• Corporación OSSO, Cali

• Univesidad EAFIT, Medellin

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Costa Rica

• Univesidad de Costa Rica (UCR)

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Mexico

• Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC)