Quantitative Mmodels

While a significant literature exists on the social and economic

impacts of natural disasters, this knowledge has not been translated

into quantitative models that can be used to predict the level of

consequences that are likely to result from events of different

magnitudes. To model the social and economic consequences of

earthquakes will require the development of models that are driven by

the physical damage estimates produced by engineering models.

The Mid-America Earthquake (MAE) Center has generated significant

research which has resulted in robust models to predict physical

damage to buildings, transportation networks, and infrastructure

systems. This project will extend those models to predict the social

and economic consequences that are often the most salient

concerns of decision makers. Major social impacts that have been

identified include short- and long-term shelter needs, short- and long-

term job loss, business failures, number of casualties, direct dollar

losses, and business interruption losses. The project team will

compile an exhaustive list and identify those that can be effectively

modeled. The project goals and objectives include: 1) to advance the

state-of-the-art of social science research on earthquake hazards to

be better aligned and integrated with the quantitative modeling

approach that characterizes current research in the geophysical and

engineering areas; 2) the development of a set of quantitative models

to estimate the social and economic consequences that result from

the physical damage produced by earthquake of various sizes; and 3)

the development of a cross-hazard metric to characterize the damage

produced by a hazard event (earthquake, flood or hurricane). This is a

collaborative and interdisciplinary project which includes the

participation of Steve French (PI, Georgia Institute of Technology),

Walt G. Peacock (Co-PI, Texas A&M University), Havidan Rodriguez

(Co-PI, DRC - University of Delaware), Ed Feser (Co-PI, University of

Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), and Ricardo Lopez (Co-PI, University

of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez)..