Findings on Earth Science Reported by U. Hancilar et al (Earthquake risk assessment for the building inventory of Muscat, Sultanate of Oman)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week -- Fresh data on Science - Earth Science are presented in a new report. According to news reporting from Istanbul, Turkey, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, "Earthquake risk can be quantified in terms of the estimated numbers of human casualties and of damaged buildings as well as the monetary losses. The information required for the assessment of earthquake risk in a given region includes the expected level of ground shaking intensity (i.e., the seismic hazard), inventory data for building stock at risk, identification of predominant building typologies and of their vulnerability characteristics, and spatial distribution of number of inhabitants."

Financial support for this research came from Sultan Qaboos University (see also Science - Earth Science).

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research, "This study presents an indicative assessment of earthquake risk associated with the building stock in Muscat, the capital city of the Sultanate of Oman. For this purpose, building inventory and demographic data for the city are compiled in GIS environment. The buildings are classified to identify their damageability/vulnerability characteristics, and predominant building typologies are determined. For the estimation of casualties, Muscat population data are further analyzed to calculate number of occupants in the exposed building stock. Spectral acceleration-displacement based damage estimation methodology is implemented for risk calculations. Site-specific ground motions in terms spectral accelerations obtained from the probabilistic seismic hazard assessment for 475- and 2475-year return periods are considered for the representation of earthquake demand in damage analyses. Assessment of damage to buildings and estimation of casualties are obtained using analytical fragility relationships and building damage related casualty-vulnerability models, respectively."

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: "Earthquake risk maps illustrating the spatial distribution of number of damaged buildings at different damage states are presented for the considered levels of seismic hazard."

For more information on this research see: Earthquake risk assessment for the building inventory of Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. Natural Hazards, 2018;93(3):1419-1434. Natural Hazards can be contacted at: Springer, 233 Spring St, New York, NY 10013, USA. (Springer - www.springer.com; Natural Hazards - www.springerlink.com/content/0921-030x/)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting U. Hancilar, Bogazici Univ Teknopk, REC Int, Istanbul, Turkey. Additional authors for this research include I. El-Hussain, K. Sesetyan, A. Deif, E. Cakti, G. Al-Rawas, E. Safak and K. Al-Jabri.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-018-3357-1. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

Keywords for this news article include: Istanbul, Turkey, Eurasia, Earth Science, Science.

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