Vulnerability Analysis in Earthquake Loss Estimate

The abodes in Costa Rica have almost the samevulnerability as the old civil houses in China, whichrepresent the vulnerability in worst cases. On theother hand, the high quality buildings in Middle Easthave the same vulnerability as the reinforced concretebuildings in China due to employing thestate-of-art-design and construction techniques, whichrepresent the vulnerability of the best cases. Themacroeconomic vulnerability is defined as the ratio ofphysical economic loss caused by earthquake to theGross Domestic Product (GDP) within a given area.Since the total macroscopic loss is the sum of lossesof different types of buildings and facilities, themacroeconomic vulnerability must be greater than thatof best cases while less than that of worst cases. Inthe present paper, the implications of macroeconomicvulnerability to earthquake loss estimate arediscussed. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2001