Long-Term Evaluation of Post-Disaster Reconstruction and Impacts of Natural Hazards on Urban Transformation - the Case Study of Aigio, Greece.


Abstract eng:
This paper focuses on long-term evaluation of post-disaster reconstruction and impacts of natural hazards on urban transformation. After a destructive event reconstruction presents an inevitable necessity which pursues to designing a process that readjusts the system while improving its capacities to sustain against predictable risks. The emerging situation is often perceived as an opportunity, because the approach towards post-disaster reconstruction predestines whether catastrophes can act as a catalyst for modernization or as a constraint for further development. Experiences from historical and recent reconstruction processes reveal the crucial problem: transformative change is caused by disasters, not by design. There is a lack of interdisciplinary cooperation and integrated approaches that consider the socio-spatial interrelations while accounting for long-term strategic development and the evaluation of the post-disaster reconstruction in order to adjust the system against newly arising risks. Based on a systematic building stock elaboration this study analyses the effects of the destructive 1995 earthquake on the urban development of Aigio, Greece. Three building surveys were operated at various times and with sufficiently large distance. Starting after the earthquake (1995), including results of detailed damage surveys, continued into 2005 (ten years after the earthquake to consider the reconstruction process) and a recent evaluation in 2013. This long-term evaluation allows comparing foreseen reconstruction measures and actual occurring urban transformation by considering the changes of pre vs. post-event vulnerability and resilience capacities of the built environment within a 20 years covering time frame (Delta ’Δ‘-Consideration). For each survey the analysis applies the Vulnerability Classes according to the Construction Types defined by the European Macroseismic Scale 1998 (EMS-98). The EMS-98 can thus be transferred as a tool for disaster risk reduction on the scale of integrated urban development concepts. This appears reasonable as the insights of the study let to the conclusion that the single building, but also the large scale engineering approach, is not sufficient to reduce disaster risks; especially when taking into account the incorporated multi-hazard assessment and the lack of an integrated approach that combines engineering and urban planning considerations during post-disaster reconstruction. Therefore a complementary Urban Resilience perspective is presented which integrates the interrelation of social processes and built environment into the engineering approach. Interdisciplinary cooperation generates the synergies needed to integrate disaster risks reduction within an urban development process that creates change by design, not by disaster.

Contributors:
Conference Title:
Conference Title:
16th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering
Conference Venue:
Santiago (CL)
Conference Dates:
2017-01-09 / 2017-01-13
Rights:
Text je chráněný podle autorského zákona č. 121/2000 Sb.



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 Record created 2017-01-18, last modified 2017-01-18


Original version of the author's contribution as presented on USB, paper 3874.:
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