Seismic risk of structures

Abstract

From the perspective of disasters, risk has been defined in order to carry out its management, as well as to control the possible economic, social and environmental consequences that may occur in a specific area and time. This means that to estimate the risk it is necessary to take into account, from a multidisciplinary point of view, not only the expected physical damage, the victims or equivalent economic losses, but also social, organizational and institutional factors related to the development of the communities. At the urban level, for example, vulnerability, as an internal risk factor, must be related not only to the exposure of the material context or its physical susceptibility to being affected, but also to the social fragilities and the lack of resilience of the communities. In this chapter, conceptual, theoretical and practical problems related to seismic risk are presented. The definitions of hazard and seismic vulnerability, necessary to analyze the risk, are introduced. All the developments that are carried out are examined from the point of view of the possibilities of preventing seismic risk.