Evacuation vulnerability after an urban earthquake: mapping it using a GIS

The danger that buildings and other human constructions pose to people after serious seismic events has been researched for a long time. Vulnerability and risk can now be estimated using well established methods. However, the danger that people face after an earthquake when they are moving to reach a safe spot has not been thoroughly researched. Accordingly, we address evacuation vulnerability in this paper. We chose four parameters of danger - seismic risk of the buildings lining the street, buildings’ heights compared to street width, street slope and street traffic conditions, and we then assigned them to those street segments which might make up post-earthquake, evacuation routes. The results were then plotted using a GIS. In this way, we generated a useful map that clearly highlighted the street segments to be avoided as part of evacuation routes. In addition, we identified several areas with urban characteristics that increase evacuation vulnerability.