Methodology and its application for community-scale evacuation planning against earthquake disaster

In urban area, popular and property is accumulated in a small area, potential risk of earthquake disaster in urban community is great. Pre-disaster emergency evacuation zoning has become a significant topic of disaster prevention and mitigation research. Based on the present layout of evacuation facilities and shelters as well as the evacuation demands in urban communities, a systematical methodology for occupant evacuation against earthquakes on community scale was developed by employing spatial analysis techniques of Geographical Information System (GIS). The methodology included the following aspects: the distribution analysis of emergency evacuation demands, the calculation of shelter space accessibility, and the optimization of evacuation destinations. This methodology was applied to Lujiazui Street in Pudong, a new district located in Shanghai, China. It was found that the proposed methodology could be used to formulate pre-event planning for earthquake disaster prevention and mitigation on a community scale, especially for organizing a rapid and smooth evacuation and optimizing the location allocation of shelters. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012