GeoHazards International and the Center for Disaster and Risk Analysis (CDRA) at Colorado State University examined earthquake risk reduction programs, the needs of practitioners, and barriers to risk reduction in eleven cities around the world. They conducted a study for the Global Earthquake Model Foundation (GEM).
To build communities that are safer and more resilient from earthquakes, community leaders in seismically active areas need to make smart decisions about policies and practices. GEM is an initiative help fill this need by to calculating earthquake risk worldwide and making risk information available to anyone with an Internet connection through an open, web-based platform.
The GEM study covered 11 cities in 7 countries.
The project team investigated the needs of selected GEM beneficiaries and described how GEM could most effectively communicate its earthquake risk information to promote action. To achieve these goals, the project team traveled to eleven cities in seven countries (Bhutan, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Peru, Turkey, and the United States). They interviewed more than 130 government officials, school and hospital administrators, and business and nonprofit leaders working on local earthquake safety.
They organized the findings into three categories: existing earthquake risk reduction programs and activities; earthquake risk reduction resource needs; and barriers to implementing risk reduction activities. The project team then drafted actionable steps that GEM could take to support earthquake practitioners in seismically prone communities around the world. Across the eleven cities, practitioners reported that they lack one central technical tool or resource that provides a comprehensive portrait of earthquake risk in their cities