Development of a multi-hazard and multi-users risk scenario methodology and application to a study case

Abstract

This thesis presents a proof of concept that is a starting point for the development of a method useful to create multi-users and multi-hazard risk scenarios. It will be tested in operational study cases inside the RASOR project.
The point of strength of the work is that it tries to point out the different aspects that the method have to includes and it tries to merge these aspects together in a unique approach.
The main open issue is related to the modelling of the multi-hazard dimension. The interactions are complex and dependent to many factors so that it is difficult to identify a general scheme. The multi-hazard dimension should be modelled case by case. This is also the approach proposed inside the RASOR project. The interactions should be modelled case by case because they depend strongly on: which hazards we are considering and in which order they are happening; the physical context in which they happen; the time that these hazard need to develop (there are long term hazards, such as subsidence, and short ones, such as a seism); the social and political dynamics inside the study area.
The main idea behind this approach is to identify which are the most probable hazard interactions in a given area, and to study their interactions specifically for its physical and social context.The other open issues related to the methodological approach are principally related to the simplification that we have introduced. Future developments will describe with more details the different losses. In particular: the economic loss evaluation will consider also the indirect economic losses due to the inoperability; the social dimension will consider not only people distribution but also the type of people that is distributed on the territory, with specific attention to children, elder people, and disabled people;? the environmental loss will be more detailed considering loss in biodiversity as a parameter to measure environmental impacts on ecosystems.
The second step will be the effective implementation of the methodology in order to have an operative tool that different users can employ to develop their ad hoc risk scenarios.

Date of Award	6 Feb 2014
Original language	English
Supervisor	Matthieu Kervyn De Meerendre (Promotor) & Giorgio Boni (Promotor)