Papers by Sonia Giovinazzi
Proceedings of IF CRASC'15
Non-pressurised pipes, commonly used within gravity driven storm water and wastewater networks, a... more Non-pressurised pipes, commonly used within gravity driven storm water and wastewater networks, are very vulnerable to earthquakes. The consequences potentially caused by the
earthquake-induced damage to both pipes storm water and waste water networks could be highly impacting in the short and long term, including health issues to the impacted population and increased flooding vulnerability in the impacted area. Therefore a reliable preevent seismic vulnerability assessment and a precise, though rapid, post-earthquake damage assessment for non-pressurised pipes is critical. Empirical fragility relations have been commonly used for predicting expected damage for buried pipes for both pre-disaster vulnerability assessment purpose and for informing post-disaster impact assessment and therefore repair/reconstruction decision making. However different shortcomings still affect fragility relationships and their use for the aforementioned purposes. The availability of advanced survey techniques and data management software is opening new opportunities towards a precise damage and impact assessment for buried pipes post-earthquake and therefore towards an optimal repair/reconstruction decision-making process, as demonstrated after the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES) 2010-2011 in New Zealand. However, such a detailed level of damage and impact assessment might be very time-consuming and expensive and therefore unaffordable at large scale. This paper, after providing a nonexhaustive, but effective, overview on both fragility relations and advanced survey techniques,
compare the outcomes from both the approaches and discuss their weaknesses and potentialities in relation to a case study, identifying with a selected portion of Christchurch, New Zealand, storm water system. The projecting of the outcomes from damage assessment
with advanced survey techniques, conducted in confined selected areas, using empirical models is envisaged to become an optimal compromise towards accurate although time and cost-effective post-earthquake damage and impact assessment
A hierarchical family of Damage Probability Matrices (DPM) has been derived in this paper from th... more A hierarchical family of Damage Probability Matrices (DPM) has been derived in this paper from the ones implicitly contained in the EMS-98 Macroseismic Scale for 6 vulnerability classes. To this aim the linguistic definitions provided by the scale, and the associated fuzzy sub-sets of the percentage of buildings, have been completed according to reliable hypotheses.
Post-disaster reconstruction of roading networks is a notoriously complex task that involves prio... more Post-disaster reconstruction of roading networks is a notoriously complex task that involves prioritisation and allocation of resources, as well as extensive information gathering and sharing of information between the involved organisations. Advances in Information Technology (IT) have prompted various initiatives using simulators, damage scenario tools, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Decision Support Systems (DSS) to assist post-disaster reconstruction preparedness. This paper presents a critical overview of how Information Technology was used in the reconstruction process of the road network in Southern California after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and how international organisations cooperated with national and local organisations to support response and recovery to the 2004 Sumatra Earthquake and Tsunami. Both events are analysed in order to identify the driving criteria that have ruled the repair/reconstruction processes. Thus, opportunities and challenges to employ IT for roading organisations to support post-disaster reconstruction are discussed based on the analysis of real events previously mentioned.
Natural and man made disasters have been increasely affecting societies world wide. Damage range ... more Natural and man made disasters have been increasely affecting societies world wide. Damage range from deaths to business disruptions and can impact regional and local development at different scales. In this respect, response needs to be quickly and effectively deployed in order to reduce life and economic losses. The complex environment of disaster management can overwhelm organisations and decision-makers; therefore, generate poor response and resource usage. General recommendations and optimum resource deployment strategies can facilitate decision-making and ultimately reduce social / economic impacts. Hence, a decision support system, namely Dynamic Response Recovery Tool, is proposed in this paper according to a number of findings gathered from previous experiences in observing emergency exercises and performing game simulations as well as a logistics conceptualization of physical resource deployment during disaster situations. The proposed system is to be assessed in future research endeavours using a specific method in order to confirm its efficiency and applicability in real scenarios as well as to identify design shortcomings before an operational version can be developed and deployed for roading organisations.
This paper proposes a novel method to analyse decision-making during extreme events. The method i... more This paper proposes a novel method to analyse decision-making during extreme events. The method is based on Decision-making Theory and aims at understanding how emergency managers make decisions during disasters. A data collection framework and an analysis method were conceptualized to capture participant's behaviour, perception and understanding throughout a game-board simulation exercise, which emulates an earthquake disaster scenario affecting transport systems. The method evaluates the participant's actions in order to identify decision-making patterns, strengths and weaknesses. A set of case studies has shown two typical patterns, namely: a) Support immediate rescue; b) Support lifelines recovery. Good decision-making practices regard to objective-oriented decision making, understanding of conflicting priorities and appropriate resource management. Weaknesses are associated with comprehending relationships between community/environment and projecting future scenarios. Overall, the case study's results demonstrate the efficiency and robustness of the proposed method to analyse decision making during disasters.
Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure, 1(1-2), 14–31, DOI: 10.1080/23789689.2016.1178560, Jun 2016
Major earthquakes can cause extensive transformations to the land underlying cities, leading to
d... more Major earthquakes can cause extensive transformations to the land underlying cities, leading to
decreased capacity in natural and built drainage systems and, as a consequence, to Increased
Flooding Hazard (IFH). This phenomenon causes some areas, which previously were not exposed
to flooding, to have the potential to flood, and already flood-prone areas to likely experience
increased flood depth during the next rainfall events. This scenario occurred in Christchurch city,
New Zealand, after the 2010–2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES). The IFH was observed
in many urban areas during a series of rainfall events occurred in the years after the CES. This paper
proposes a method for analysing and assessing to what extent the earthquake-induced damage to
storm water pipelines and the consequent impacts on the connectivity and capacity levels of the
pipeline storm water network could contribute to the IFH. A probabilistic analysis, through a Monte
Carlo simulation, is suggested for the proposed method so that the uncertainty affecting several key
parameters can be accounted for. The proposed probabilistic method for IFH was implemented as an
additional module within a recently developed open-source simulation tool, OOFIMS. Results from
the added OOFIMS module are presented in terms of maps and cumulative distribution functions of
increased flood height and flooded area, impact metrics that can be useful for emergency managers
and infrastructure owners. The effectiveness of the proposed method to assess earthquake-altered
flooding hazard and the relative OOFIMS-added module are tested using Christchurch as a case-study.
Encyclopedia of Earthquake Engineering, 2014
Past and recent earthquakes have highlighted significant seismic vulnerability of utility lines, ... more Past and recent earthquakes have highlighted significant seismic vulnerability of utility lines, including water and wastewater pipelines, at bridge crossings. After the Canterbury Earthquakes (2010-2011), severe impact on utility lines at bridge crossings was reported. To identify the risk mitigation strategies for these systems, a performance based approach for the seismic assessment of integrated bridge-utility systems has been proposed. This paper focuses on findings from the first stream of the proposed framework, by presenting the product of the exhaustive data collection and collation, as seismic vulnerability indices.
Fire design stakeholders such as architects, regulators, fire service, etc., often have different... more Fire design stakeholders such as architects, regulators, fire service, etc., often have different opinions about which passive fire protection approach is the most appropriate one in meeting structural fire performance objectives. There are many options for protecting steel buildings in a fully developed fire, but there is the need to identify a strategy that could satisfy at best the different and sometimes conflictual stakeholder desires, thereby reducing design uncertainties. This paper proposes a three-stage approach to address this issue: (i) stakeholder engagement, to identify and extract stakeholder desires; (ii) decision analysis, and; (iii) risk-based parametric study. The paper focuses, in particular on the first two stages. The first stage describes the process of identification and extraction of stakeholder desires in steel structural fire design from literature and structured interviews through a stakeholder engagement plan. The second stage of the decision-making process is demonstrated using a simple stakeholder goal-rating and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). In particular, the use of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is proposed to manage the multiplicity of stakeholder desires towards common decision-criteria, manage possible inconsistent goal-rating, and to rank the different proposed passive fire protection options.
SOMMARIO: Un Sistema Geografico Informatizzato GIS rappresenta l'ambiente ideale all'interno del ... more SOMMARIO: Un Sistema Geografico Informatizzato GIS rappresenta l'ambiente ideale all'interno del quale sviluppare uno studio multidisciplinare quale l'analisi di rischio sismico, che richiede l'integrazione delle valutazioni di pericolosità, vulnerabilità e esposizione a scala territoriale. Nel lavoro viene presentata l'implementazione in ambiente GIS di due metodi per l'analisi di vulnerabilità: un approccio macrosismico da utilizzarsi qualora la descrizioni della pericolosità sia in termini di intensità macrosismica e un approccio meccanico semplificato da utilizzarsi qualora l'hazard sia rappresentato in termini di PGA o attraverso spettri di risposta. L'applicazione dei due metodi al territorio della Liguria Occidentale rappresenta un'occasione per il loro confronto in termini di scenari di danno.
Performance of lifelines during the April 6 event may be considered generally good if compared to... more Performance of lifelines during the April 6 event may be considered generally good if compared to the extended losses related to buildings , nevertheless damages and service downtime, which required recovery and emergency management, occurred. In the following, for each of the main lifelines in the L'Aquila area (i.e., road network, water distribution, gas distribution, power distribution, water distribution and treatment, telecommunications and postevent aid to population), the emergency management strategies adopted to recover the systems and restore their functionality in the shortest possible time are described. Finally, criteria adopted to define priorities and to allocate resources for the temporary housing camps are discussed. From the reported investigations it is concluded that the emergency management of the lifelines networks provided a rapid and resilient response to the earthquake. The emergency management procedures implemented for the physical and functional restoration of lifelines, after a proper codification may become a reference model for the Civil Defence at international level.
SOMMARIO: I metodi meccanici (HAZUS, progetto RISK-UE) finalizzati ad analisi di vulnerabilità a ... more SOMMARIO: I metodi meccanici (HAZUS, progetto RISK-UE) finalizzati ad analisi di vulnerabilità a scala territoriale, basati sull'impiego di versioni semplificate del Capacity Spectrum Method, permettono di valutare il livello di prestazioni atteso mediante stati limite di danno.Essi esigono la caratterizzazione dell'input sismico sotto forma spettrale in formato AD (Acceleration-Displacement) e delle risorse esibite dal sistema per mezzo di curve di capacità. L'attenzione, nel presente lavoro, è stata focalizzata sugli edifici in muratura, classe tipologica di grande rilievo per il costruito dell'area dell'Europa e del Mediterraneo.La domanda del terremoto è stata modellata attraverso spettri di risposta anelastici; le curve di capacità, invece, sono state individuate come bilineari elastiche perfettamente plastiche definite da tre grandezze tipologiche, quali periodo proprio di vibrazione effettivo, resistenza (espressa in termini di accelerazione orizzontale) e spostamento ultimo: tali valori sono stati definiti, per le diverse tipologie prese in considerazione, a partire da un numero limitato di parametri, facilmente reperibili, atti a caratterizzare la struttura in termini di tipologia costruttiva e geometria oltre che a descriverne il comportamento e la risposta. Alcuni esempi mostrano l'applicabilità del metodo proposto.
The Italian heritage building stock is dominated by unreinforced masonry buildings widespread on ... more The Italian heritage building stock is dominated by unreinforced masonry buildings widespread on the whole territory with rammed earth buildings peculiar of some regions. A major effort is given to strengthen or retrofit these buildings in order to improve their safety under seismic loading as well as to preserve them as memory of the ancient art of builders and as constitutive elements of the anthrop-environment. This paper describes traditional seismic retrofit interventions adopted in Italy. These retrofitting interventions, revised according to the modern technologies, derived from historical concept of aseismic devices (i.e. metallic tie-rods, circumferential tie-rods, buttresses, "diatoni", wall connections, partial reconstruction of walls) suggested to the builders' crafts by observation of earthquake damage and imposed by the past technical rules. A good degree of confidence on the feasibility, compatibility and effectiveness of these techniques for URM buildings is guaranteed after having been extensively tested during the centuries. Recently, technical national code-guidelines for the seismic retrofit of existing URM masonry buildings have been prepared with the specific purpose to help practitioner engineers to implement these solutions.
Keywords: Rischio sismico, gestione dell'emergenza e della ricostruzione,modelli di vulnerabilità... more Keywords: Rischio sismico, gestione dell'emergenza e della ricostruzione,modelli di vulnerabilità, modelli di costo ABSTRACT: Il processo di ricostruzione dei comuni della provincia di Campobasso, colpiti dalla crisi sismica iniziata il 31.10.2002, è stato demandato alla Regione Molise con la nomina di un Commissario Delegato che ha emanato le direttive O.C.D. n.13/2003, fissando i criteri e le norme generali per il processo di ricostruzione degli edifici pubblici, delle infrastrutture, dei dissesti idrogeologici e dell'edilizia privata residenziale, agricola e produttiva. I documenti progettuali prodotti durante il processo di ricostruzione del Molise e i rilievi di danno realizzato durante la fase di emergenza rappresentano una fonte di informazione estremamente utile al fine del confronto, calibrazione, e integrazione dei modelli correntemente utilizzati a differente livello di dettaglio e precisione per la: 1) valutazione della vulnerabilità, 2) previsione del danno e delle perdite attese, 3) stima dei costi e delle risorse necessarie per la ricostruzione. Il presente lavoro rappresenta un primo passo di questa analisi. In particolare, dai dati sintetici relativi ai progetti preliminari semplificati (base di dati sintetica PPS) presentati nell'ambito del processo di ricostruzione del Molise, sono stati estratti dati ed informazioni utili per il confronto con le previsioni ottenute implementando un metodo per la stima di vulnerabilità e danno, noto come metodo macrosismico. I dati PPS relativi al danno osservato sono stati utilizzati per verificare l'affidabilità delle distribuzioni di danno stimate, per diverse macro-tipologie implementando il metodo macrosismico. A loro volta, i costi di intervento stimati all'interno del database PEU-PES sono stati confrontati con quelli risultanti dall'implementazione di modelli di costo, correntemente utilizzati nell'ambito di analisi di rischio sismico, rispetto allo scenario di danno simulato.
Bulletin of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering
Churches are an important part of New Zealand's historical and architectural heritage. Various ea... more Churches are an important part of New Zealand's historical and architectural heritage. Various earthquakes around the world have highlighted the significant seismic vulnerability of religious buildings, with the extensive damage that occurred to stone and clay-brick unreinforced masonry churches after the
Bulletin of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck the city of Christchurch at 12:51pm on Tuesday 22 February 2011... more A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck the city of Christchurch at 12:51pm on Tuesday 22 February 2011. The earthquake caused 182 fatalities, a large number of injuries, and resulted in widespread damage to the built environment, including significant disruption to the lifelines. The event created the largest lifeline disruption in a New Zealand city in 80 years, with much of the damage resulting from extensive and severe liquefaction in the Christchurch urban area. The Christchurch earthquake occurred when the Canterbury region and its lifelines systems were at the early stage of recovering from the 4 September 2010 Darfield (Canterbury) magnitude 7.1 earthquake. This paper describes the impact of the Christchurch earthquake on lifelines by briefly summarising the physical damage to the networks, the system performance and the operational response during the emergency management and the recovery phase. Special focus is given to the performance and management of the gas, electric and road networks and to the liquefaction ejecta clean-up operations that contributed to the rapid reinstatement of the functionality of many of the lifelines. The water and wastewater system performances are also summarized. Elements of resilience that contributed to good network performance or to efficient emergency and recovery management are highlighted in the paper.
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Papers by Sonia Giovinazzi
earthquake-induced damage to both pipes storm water and waste water networks could be highly impacting in the short and long term, including health issues to the impacted population and increased flooding vulnerability in the impacted area. Therefore a reliable preevent seismic vulnerability assessment and a precise, though rapid, post-earthquake damage assessment for non-pressurised pipes is critical. Empirical fragility relations have been commonly used for predicting expected damage for buried pipes for both pre-disaster vulnerability assessment purpose and for informing post-disaster impact assessment and therefore repair/reconstruction decision making. However different shortcomings still affect fragility relationships and their use for the aforementioned purposes. The availability of advanced survey techniques and data management software is opening new opportunities towards a precise damage and impact assessment for buried pipes post-earthquake and therefore towards an optimal repair/reconstruction decision-making process, as demonstrated after the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES) 2010-2011 in New Zealand. However, such a detailed level of damage and impact assessment might be very time-consuming and expensive and therefore unaffordable at large scale. This paper, after providing a nonexhaustive, but effective, overview on both fragility relations and advanced survey techniques,
compare the outcomes from both the approaches and discuss their weaknesses and potentialities in relation to a case study, identifying with a selected portion of Christchurch, New Zealand, storm water system. The projecting of the outcomes from damage assessment
with advanced survey techniques, conducted in confined selected areas, using empirical models is envisaged to become an optimal compromise towards accurate although time and cost-effective post-earthquake damage and impact assessment
decreased capacity in natural and built drainage systems and, as a consequence, to Increased
Flooding Hazard (IFH). This phenomenon causes some areas, which previously were not exposed
to flooding, to have the potential to flood, and already flood-prone areas to likely experience
increased flood depth during the next rainfall events. This scenario occurred in Christchurch city,
New Zealand, after the 2010–2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES). The IFH was observed
in many urban areas during a series of rainfall events occurred in the years after the CES. This paper
proposes a method for analysing and assessing to what extent the earthquake-induced damage to
storm water pipelines and the consequent impacts on the connectivity and capacity levels of the
pipeline storm water network could contribute to the IFH. A probabilistic analysis, through a Monte
Carlo simulation, is suggested for the proposed method so that the uncertainty affecting several key
parameters can be accounted for. The proposed probabilistic method for IFH was implemented as an
additional module within a recently developed open-source simulation tool, OOFIMS. Results from
the added OOFIMS module are presented in terms of maps and cumulative distribution functions of
increased flood height and flooded area, impact metrics that can be useful for emergency managers
and infrastructure owners. The effectiveness of the proposed method to assess earthquake-altered
flooding hazard and the relative OOFIMS-added module are tested using Christchurch as a case-study.
earthquake-induced damage to both pipes storm water and waste water networks could be highly impacting in the short and long term, including health issues to the impacted population and increased flooding vulnerability in the impacted area. Therefore a reliable preevent seismic vulnerability assessment and a precise, though rapid, post-earthquake damage assessment for non-pressurised pipes is critical. Empirical fragility relations have been commonly used for predicting expected damage for buried pipes for both pre-disaster vulnerability assessment purpose and for informing post-disaster impact assessment and therefore repair/reconstruction decision making. However different shortcomings still affect fragility relationships and their use for the aforementioned purposes. The availability of advanced survey techniques and data management software is opening new opportunities towards a precise damage and impact assessment for buried pipes post-earthquake and therefore towards an optimal repair/reconstruction decision-making process, as demonstrated after the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES) 2010-2011 in New Zealand. However, such a detailed level of damage and impact assessment might be very time-consuming and expensive and therefore unaffordable at large scale. This paper, after providing a nonexhaustive, but effective, overview on both fragility relations and advanced survey techniques,
compare the outcomes from both the approaches and discuss their weaknesses and potentialities in relation to a case study, identifying with a selected portion of Christchurch, New Zealand, storm water system. The projecting of the outcomes from damage assessment
with advanced survey techniques, conducted in confined selected areas, using empirical models is envisaged to become an optimal compromise towards accurate although time and cost-effective post-earthquake damage and impact assessment
decreased capacity in natural and built drainage systems and, as a consequence, to Increased
Flooding Hazard (IFH). This phenomenon causes some areas, which previously were not exposed
to flooding, to have the potential to flood, and already flood-prone areas to likely experience
increased flood depth during the next rainfall events. This scenario occurred in Christchurch city,
New Zealand, after the 2010–2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES). The IFH was observed
in many urban areas during a series of rainfall events occurred in the years after the CES. This paper
proposes a method for analysing and assessing to what extent the earthquake-induced damage to
storm water pipelines and the consequent impacts on the connectivity and capacity levels of the
pipeline storm water network could contribute to the IFH. A probabilistic analysis, through a Monte
Carlo simulation, is suggested for the proposed method so that the uncertainty affecting several key
parameters can be accounted for. The proposed probabilistic method for IFH was implemented as an
additional module within a recently developed open-source simulation tool, OOFIMS. Results from
the added OOFIMS module are presented in terms of maps and cumulative distribution functions of
increased flood height and flooded area, impact metrics that can be useful for emergency managers
and infrastructure owners. The effectiveness of the proposed method to assess earthquake-altered
flooding hazard and the relative OOFIMS-added module are tested using Christchurch as a case-study.