GIS-Based Seismic Damage Estimation: Case Study for the City of Kelowna, BC

This study integrates risk assessment tools for diagnosis of urban areas against seismic disasters (RADIUS) and geographic information system (GIS), hence forth denoted as GBR (GIS based RADIUS). The GBR is applied for seismic damage estimation of city of Kelowna, in the interior of British Columbia, Canada. Ground-shaking intensity in the area was developed utilizing the seismic source zones defined by the Geological Survey of Canada and opinions from the local experts. Building inventories were compiled by aggregating data from municipal databases as well as sidewalk surveys and surveys through Google Maps. The GIS tool came in to be handy to provide a basis for effective decision making and gauge the vulnerable areas. Estimated damage and damage distributions were mapped on a block-by-block (535 km) basis. The assessment revealed that an earthquake scenario of M8.5 in the Cascadia Zone may potentially damage around 58 buildings within the city, causing 12 injuries. Plus, the study showed some damage assessment for the lifelines, for example, road and water pipelines networks. The assessment results further revealed that the city of Kelowna downtown area was expected to suffer the highest amount of damage, which in turn may produce the highest amount of economic loss, because it is the concentration of concrete high-rise buildings and clustered economic activities. Therefore, for good measure, extra meticulous efforts and razor-sharp insight bundled with precise seismic damage estimation (2-3 2-km grids) were conducted for the downtown area to provide guidelines for emergency response. The proposed GBR framework provides a useful tool to quickly assess the expected damages in response to a major seismic event, which can be updated easily during disaster. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)NH.1527-6996.0000082. (C) 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.