| Today, three critical questions remain unanswered in the field of earthquake risk management; how much mitigation is enough; who pays and benefits; and what benefits are received for every investment in a strategy. The current research develops a comprehensive strategy evaluation technique to answer these questions. The Strategy Effectiveness Charts (SEC) present a graphical comparison of the effectiveness of strategies at an individual, group, or regional level. Effectiveness is evaluated in terms of a new measure, performance in an earthquake. Performance incorporates issues associated with different types of losses, post-event recovery efficiency, as well as likelihood of implementation of a strategy. Each SEC provides information about pre and post mitigation performance for different strategies, and costs of implementation.; In addition to identifying optimal strategies for a user, SEC's can be developed for specific applications. Emergency management agencies can use SEC's as a medium for information transfer to encourage mitigation by the public. Insurance companies could develop SEC's to price insurance contingent on amount of retrofit. Commercial businesses can use SEC's to estimate investments required to maintain a desired level of performance in future earthquakes.; SEC's are developed in three steps. (1) Loss and recovery data are generated for different earthquake scenarios. (2) Pre-mitigation performance is evaluated using scenario data and socio-economic characteristics of a user. (3) Post-mitigation performance is estimated for each strategy based on its effect on scenario data and its likelihood of implementation. SEC's are developed for the residential, commercial, lifeline, and government sectors in Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area. SEC's are also developed for specific users such as an insurance company.; Major conclusions of this research are the following. (1) Choice of optimal strategies should be based on overall performance. (2) Implementation is an important criteria while developing policies. (3) Combination of strategies like retrofit and insurance are effective for all groups involved. (4) It is important to adopt an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to earthquake risk management. The SEC methodology presents an example of such an approach and is intended to act as a framework for future multidisciplinary research in multi-hazard risk management. |
