Quantitative assessment of social losses based on physical damage and interaction with infrastructural systems

Metrics that describe direct social losses, such as number of casualties and fatalities, or the number of displaced people, which pose a demand for emergency shelter needs, or on the health-care system and other critical facilities, are key inputs for emergency response planning and preparedness. This paper presents a model to evaluate such performance indicators. The model integrates multiple infrastructural systems within a consistent computational framework where the consequences of their physical damage and interactions are used in the quantitative assessment of social losses. In particular, the interaction between the physical damage state of buildings and the combined residual service level in the utility networks is used to assess the habitability of buildings from which the number of displaced persons can be computed. The model is integrated within a larger analysis framework for the seismic vulnerability assessment of interconnected infrastructural systems, accounting for relevant uncertainties and interdependencies. A simple application illustrates the model capabilities. Copyright (C) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.