Earthquakes

Citation

(2000), "Earthquakes", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 9 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2000.07309dag.006

Earthquakes

Below are a few of the more useful disaster Internet resources reported in the Natural Hazards Observer (January 2000). For a comprehensive list of selected Internet sites dealing with hazards and disasters, see: http://ww.colorado.edu/hazards/sites/sites.html

Earthquakes

Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI)http://www.eeri.org

The Web site of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) provides information on both recent seismic events and seismic-resistant construction and hazard mitigation generally. The site recently added a special report, The Chi-Chi Taiwan Earthquake of September 21, 1999, including a paper by James D. Goltz entitled "The '921' Chi-Chi, Taiwan Earthquake of September 21, 1999: Societal Impacts and Emergency Response". The site also offers Research Needs Emerging from Recent Earthquakes – recommendations from a workshop organised by EERI for the National Science Foundation to explore needs emerging from the Turkey, Greece, and Taiwan quakes of last fall.

City of Kobe, Japanhttp://www.city.kobe.jp/cityoffice/06/013/report/index-e.html

The city of Kobe, Japan, has published a report on its Web site titled The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake: Statistics and Restoration Progress, November 1, 1999. Besides providing various statistics, the report, in Japanese and English, discusses such restoration topics as evacuation shelters, temporary housing, land use, socio-economic rehabilitation, welfare projects, economic revitalisation, transportation networks, and more. A link from the report leads to archives of Kobe quake-related texts and images dating from 1995 to 1999.

Western States Seismic Policy Council (WSSPC)http://www.wsspc.org

The Western States Seismic Policy Council (WSSPC) has created a Web-based forum for the discussion of earthquake and other disaster costs as well as strategies to ameliorate such losses. The group is open to anyone from any discipline interested in this issue. Potential topics for discussion range from methods for increasing public awareness, to public risk perception, loss estimation models and improved data collection methods, and the identification of realistic policies to deal with future damaging events. WSSPC anticipates publishing summaries of these discussions in its newsletter, EQ: Earthquake Quarterly, and, based on these summaries, posing new questions to participants. For more information about this discussion group, see the Web site above, or contact WSSPC, 121 Second Street, 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105; (415) 974-6435. Fax: (415) 974 1747; e-mail: wsspc@wsspc.org

Global Seismic Hazard Map Publishedhttp://seismo.ethz.ch/GSHAP/

The US Geological Survey and the Swiss Seismological Service have released the first quantitative map of global seismic hazard. The Global Seismic Hazard Map is a product of the Global Seismic Hazard Assessment Program (GSHAP), launched in 1992 and terminated last year, which was part of the United Nations International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. Hundreds of scientists from most of the world's countries co-operated to produce the map, which depicts peak ground acceleration that has a 10 per cent chance of being exceeded in the next 50 years. Peak ground acceleration can be applied to building codes, and the map was created in part as a tool for land-use planning and building design in areas subject to earthquake hazards.

The GSHAP map and all associated documentation, including regional reports, maps of seismicity, source characterization information, and yearly reports, are available via the Internet through the GSHAP homepage while supplies last, free copies of the Global Seismic Hazard Map can be ordered from: Swiss Seismological Service, ETH Hoenggerberg, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland. E-mail: sed@seismo.ifg.ethz.ch or from USGS/CRGHT, MS 966 Box 25046, Denver, CCO 80225, USA. E-mail: gshapmap@usgs.gov