Measuring Social Vulnerabilities To Earthquake Losses in the Andean Region

Abstract eng:
Earthquake risk in South America is the result of a complex seismic zone, coupled with a high exposure of economic and infrastructural assets and low levels of resilience within human settlements. Together, these characteristics interact not only to create a high potential for loss, but also to differentially affect the ability of populations to prepare for, respond to, and recover from damaging earthquake events. In this context, the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) through the South America Risk Assessment (SARA) project considered loss and damage as part of a dynamic system in which interactions between natural systems, the engineered environment, and societal factors are integrated accounting for the major factors that redistribute loss and recovery potential following a damaging event. Part of the work entailed the development of a set of composite indicators of social vulnerability (characteristics within social systems that create the potential for harm or loss) at sub-national levels to measure the implication of societal factors in earthquake risk in the South American Andean Countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela). This paper reports upon the methods, metrics, and social vulnerabilities observed within each country as they pertain to earthquake risk (human and/or economic losses). Results show the distribution of social vulnerability across parishes in the South American countries and the driving forces acting upon populations to shape their social vulnerability.

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