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Summary
T
he United States will certainly be subject to damaging earthquakes
in the future, and some of those earthquakes will occur in highly
populated and vulnerable areas. Just as Hurricane Katrina tragically
demonstrated for hurricane events, coping with moderate earthquakes
is not a reliable indicator of preparedness for a major earthquake in a
populated area. This report presents a roadmap for increasing our national
resilience to earthquakes, including the infrequent—but inevitable—
Katrina-like earthquake events.
The United States has not experienced a great1 earthquake since 1964,
when Alaska was struck by a magnitude-9.2 event, and the damage in
Alaska was relatively light because of the sparse population. The 1906 San
Francisco earthquake was the most recent truly devastating U.S. shock,
because recent destructive earthquakes have been only moderate to strong
in size. Consequently, a sense has developed that the country can cope
effectively with the earthquake threat and is, in fact, “resilient.” However,
coping with moderate events may not be a true indicator of preparedness
for a great one. One means to understand the potential effects from major
earthquakes is to use scenarios, where communities simulate the effects
and responses to a specified earthquake. Analysis of the 2008 ShakeOut
scenario in California (Jones et al., 2008), which involved more than 5,000
1Damaging effects from earthquakes reflect not only the earthquake magnitude, but also
ground motion as measured by velocity, acceleration, frequency, and shaking duration. U.S.
Geological Survey definitions of earthquake magnitude classes are “great” =M≥8; “major”
M=7-7.9; “strong” M=6-6.9; “moderate” M=5-5.9; etc. See earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/
faq/?faqID=24.
1
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2 NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE RESILIENCE
emergency responders and the participation of more than 5.5 million citi -
zens, indicated that the magnitude-7.8 scenario earthquake would have
resulted in an estimated 1,800 fatalities, $113 billion in damages to build-
ings and lifelines, and nearly $70 billion in business interruption. Such an
earthquake would clearly have a major effect on the nation as a whole,
emphasizing the need to develop the capacity to reduce such effects—to
increase our national earthquake resilience.
The National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) is the
multi-agency program mandated by Congress to undertake activities to
reduce the effects of future earthquakes in the United States. NEHRP was
initially authorized by Congress in 1977 and subsequently reauthorized on
2- to 5-year intervals. The four federal agencies with funding authorizations
and legislatively mandated responsibilities for NEHRP activities are the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the National Institute
of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Science Foundation
(NSF), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). In 2009, NEHRP funding
was $129.7 million, allocated to the USGS ($61.2 million), NSF ($55.3 mil-
lion), FEMA ($9.1 million), and NIST ($4.1 million) (NIST, 2008). In 2008,
the NEHRP agencies developed a Strategic Plan with the aim of providing
a sound basis for future activities. The plan is focused on 14 objectives that
are grouped into three major goals: to improve understanding of earthquake
processes and impacts; to develop cost-effective measures to reduce earth-
quake impacts on individuals, the built environment, and society-at-large;
and to improve the earthquake resilience of communities nationwide.
NIST—the lead NEHRP agency—commissioned the National Research
Council (NRC) to develop a roadmap for earthquake hazard and risk
reduction in the United States that would be based on the goals and objec-
tives for achieving national earthquake resilience described in the 2008
NEHRP Strategic Plan. The NRC committee was directed to assess the
activities, and their costs, that would be required for the nation to achieve
earthquake resilience in 20 years. The charge to the committee recognized
that there would be a requirement for some sustained activities under the
NEHRP program after this 20-year period (see full statement of task in
Chapter 1, Box 1.2).
DEFINING EARTHQUAKE RESILIENCE
A critical requirement for achieving national earthquake resilience is,
of course, an understanding of what constitutes earthquake resilience. In
this report, we have interpreted resilience broadly so that it incorporates
engineering/science (physical), social/economic (behavioral), and institu-
tional (governing) dimensions. Resilience is also interpreted to encompass
both pre- and post-disaster actions that, in combination, will enhance the
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3
SUMMARY
robustness and the capabilities of all earthquake-vulnerable regions of our
nation to function adequately following damaging earthquakes. The com-
mittee is also cognizant that it is cost-prohibitive to achieve a completely
seismically resistant nation. Instead, we see our mission as helping set
performance targets for improving the nation’s seismic resilience over
the next 20 years and, in turn, developing a more detailed road map and
program priorities for NEHRP. With these considerations in mind, the
committee recommends that NEHRP adopt the following working defini-
tion for “national earthquake resilience”:
A disaster-resilient nation is one in which its communities,
through mitigation and pre-disaster preparation, develop the
adaptive capacity to maintain important community functions
and recover quickly when major disasters occur.
ELEMENTS AND COSTS OF A RESILIENCE ROADMAP
The committee set out to build on the 2008 NEHRP Strategic Plan by
specifying focused activities that would further implementation of the
plan and provide the basis for a more earthquake-resilient nation. In the
end, 18 tasks were identified, ranging from basic research to community-
oriented applications, which, in our view, comprise a “roadmap” for
furthering NEHRP goals and implementing the Strategic Plan. The tasks
generally cross cut the goals and objectives described in the Strategic Plan
because they are formulated as coherent activities that span from knowl -
edge building to implementation.
The committee endorses the 2008 NEHRP Strategic Plan, and
identifies 18 specific task elements required to implement that
plan and materially improve national earthquake resilience.
In estimating costs to implement the roadmap, the committee recog-
nizes that there is a high degree of variability among the 18 tasks—some
are under way or are in the process of being implemented, whereas others
are only at the conceptual stage. Costing each task required a thorough
analysis to determine scope, implementation steps, and linkages or over-
laps with other tasks. For some of the tasks, the necessary analysis had
already been completed in workshops or other venues, and realistic cost
estimates were available as input to the committee (see Appendix E for
cost estimate details). For other tasks, the committee had to rely on its
own expert opinion, in which case implementing the task may require
some degree of additional detailed analysis. In summary, the annualized
cost for the first 5 years of the roadmap for national earthquake resilience
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4 NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE RESILIENCE
presented here is $306.5 million/year (2009$), summarized in Table S.1
and made up of the following tasks:
1. Physics of Earthquake Processes. Conduct additional research
to advance the understanding of earthquake phenomena and earthquake
generation processes and to improve the predictive capabilities of earth -
quake science; 5-year annualized cost of $27 million/year, for a total
20-year cost of $585 million.
2. Advanced National Seismic System. Complete deployment of
the remaining 75 percent of the Advanced National Seismic System; 5-year
annualized cost of $66.8 million/year, for a total 20-year cost of $1.3 billion.
On-going operations and maintenance costs after the initial 20-year period
of $50 million/year.
3. Earthquake Early Warning. Evaluation, testing, and deployment
of earthquake early warning systems; 5-year annualized cost of $20.6 mil -
lion/year, for a total 20-year cost of $283 million.
4. National Seismic Hazard Model. Complete the national coverage
of seismic hazard maps and create urban seismic hazard maps and seismic
risk maps for at-risk communities; 5-year annualized cost of $50.1 million/
year, for a total 20-year cost of $946.5 million.
5. Operational Earthquake Forecasting. Develop and implement
operational earthquake forecasting, in coordination with state and local
agencies; 5-year annualized cost of $5 million/year, for a total 20-year cost
of $85 million. On-going operations and maintenance costs after the initial
20-year period are unknown.
6. Earthquake Scenarios. Develop scenarios that integrate earth sci-
ence, engineering, and social science information so that communities can
visualize earthquake and tsunami impacts and mitigate potential effects;
5-year annualized cost of $10 million/year, for a total 20-year cost of $200
million.
7. Earthquake Risk Assessments and Applications. Integrate sci-
ence, engineering, and social science information in an advanced GIS-
based loss estimation platform to improve earthquake risk assessments
and loss estimations; 5-year annualized cost of $5 million/year, for a total
20-year cost of $100 million.
8. Post-earthquake Social Science Response and Recovery Research.
Document and model the mix of expected and improvised emergency
response and recovery activities and outcomes to improve pre-disaster
mitigation and preparedness practices at household, organizational, com-
munity, and regional levels; 5-year annualized cost of $2.3 million/year,
reviewed after the initial 5-years.
9. Post-earthquake Information Management. Capture, distill, and
disseminate information about the geological, structural, institutional,
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SUMMARY
TABLE S.1 Compilation of Cost Estimates by Task, in Millions of
Dollars (all figures are 2009 dollars).
Total Total
Annualized Cost Cost
Costs (av.) Years Years Total
Years 1-5 1-5 6-20 Cost
Task ($) ($) ($) ($)
1. Physics of Earthquake Processes 27 135 450 585
2. Advanced National Seismic System 66.8 334 1,002 1,336
(ANSS)a
3. Earthquake Early Warning 20.6 103 180 283
4. National Seismic Hazard Model 50.1 250.5 696 946.5
5. Operational Earthquake Forecasting 5 25 60 85
6. Earthquake Scenarios 10 50 150 200
7. Earthquake Risk Assessments and 5 25 75 100
Applications
TBDb TBDb
8. Post-earthquake Social Science 2.3 11.5
Response and Recovery Research
9. Post-earthquake Information 1 4.8 9.8 14.6
Management
10. Socioeconomic Research on Hazard 3 15 45 60
Mitigation and Recovery
11. Observatory Network on Community 2.9 14.5 42.8 57.3
Resilience and Vulnerability
12. Physics-based Simulations of 6 30 90 120
Earthquake Damage and Loss
13. Techniques for Evaluation and 22.9 114.5 429.1 543.6
Retrofit of Existing Buildings
14. Performance-based Earthquake 46.7 233.7 657.8 891.5
Engineering for Buildings
15. Guidelines for Earthquake-Resilient 5 25 75 100
Lifelines Systems
16. Next Generation Sustainable 8.2 40.8 293.6 334.4
Materials, Components, and Systems
17. Knowledge, Tools, and Technology 8.4 42 126 168
Transfer to Public and Private Practice
18. Earthquake-Resilient Communities 15.6 78 923 1,001
and Regional Demonstration Projects
TOTAL 306.5 1,532.3 5,305.1 6,837.4
a Does not include support for geodetic monitoring or geodetic networks.
b Funding during the remaining 15 years of the plan would be based on a performance
review after 5 years.
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6 NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE RESILIENCE
and socioeconomic impacts of specific earthquakes, as well as post-disaster
response, and create and maintain a repository for post-earthquake recon-
naissance data; 5-year annualized cost of $1 million/year, for a total 20-year
cost of $14.6 million. On-going operations and maintenance costs after the
initial 20-year period are unknown, but are likely to be small.
10. Socioeconomic Research on Hazard Mitigation and Recovery.
Support basic and applied research in the social sciences to examine indi -
vidual and organizational motivations to promote resilience, the feasibility
and cost of resilience actions, and the removal of barriers to successful
implementation; 5-year annualized cost of $3 million/year, for a total
20-year cost of $60 million.
11. Observatory Network on Community Resilience and Vulner-
ability. Establish an observatory network to measure, monitor, and model
the disaster vulnerability and resilience of communities, with a focus on
resilience and vulnerability; risk assessment, perception, and management
strategies; mitigation activities; and reconstruction and recovery; of 5-year
annualized cost $2.9 million/year, for a total 20-year cost of $57.3 million.
On-going operations and maintenance costs after the initial 20-year period
are unknown.
12. Physics-based Simulations of Earthquake Damage and Loss.
Integrate knowledge gained in Tasks 1, 13, 14, and 16 to enable robust,
fully coupled simulations of fault rupture, seismic wave propagation
through bedrock, and soil-structure response to compute reliable estimates
of financial loss, business interruption, and casualties; 5-year annualized
cost of $6 million/year, for a total 20-year cost of $120 million.
13. Techniques for Evaluation and Retrofit of Existing Buildings.
Develop analytical methods that predict the response of existing buildings
with known levels of reliability based on integrated laboratory research
and numerical simulations, and improve consensus standards for seismic
evaluation and rehabilitation; 5-year annualized cost of $22.9 million/
year, for a total 20-year cost of $543.6 million.
14. Performance-based Earthquake Engineering for Buildings.
Advance performance-based earthquake engineering knowledge and
develop implementation tools to improve design practice, inform decision-
makers, and revise codes and standards for buildings, lifelines, and geo-
structures; 5-year annualized cost of $46.7 million/year, for a total 20-year
cost of $891.5 million.
15. Guidelines for Earthquake-Resilient Lifeline Systems. Conduct
lifeline-focused collaborative research to better characterize infrastructure
network vulnerability and resilience as the basis for the systematic review
and updating of existing lifelines standards and guidelines, with targeted
pilot programs and demonstration projects; 5-year annualized cost of
$5 million/year, for a total 20-year cost of $100 million.
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SUMMARY
16. Next Generation Sustainable Materials, Components, and Sys-
tems. Develop and deploy new high-performance materials, components,
and framing systems that are green and/or adaptive; 5-year annualized
cost is $8.2 million/year, for a total 20-year cost of $334.4 million.
17. Knowledge, Tools, and Technology Transfer to Public and Pri-
vate Practice. Initiate a program to encourage and coordinate technology
transfer across the NEHRP domain to ensure the deployment of state-of-
the-art mitigation techniques across the nation, particularly in regions of
moderate seismic hazard; 5-year annualized cost of $8.4 million/year, for
a total 20-year cost of $168 million.
18. Earthquake-Resilient Community and Regional Demonstration
Projects. Support and guide community-based earthquake resiliency pilot
projects to apply NEHRP-generated and other knowledge to improve
awareness, reduce risk, and improve emergency preparedness and recov-
ery capacity; 5-year annualized cost of $15.6 million/year, for a total
20-year cost of $1 billion.
TIMING OF ROADMAP COMPONENTS
The committee recommends that all the tasks identified here be
initiated immediately, contingent on the availability of funds, and sug-
gests that such an approach would represent an appropriate balance
between practical activities to enhance national earthquake resilience and
the research that is needed to provide a sound basis for such activities.
However, at a lower component level within individual tasks, there are
some elements that should be implemented and/or initiated immediately
whereas others will have to await the results of earlier activities. Sequenc -
ing information and detailed cost breakdowns are listed for several tasks
in Appendix E. The committee also notes that the two “observatory” ele -
ments of the roadmap, Task 2 and Task 11, will—or do at present—provide
fundamental information to be used by numerous other tasks.
EARTHQUAKE RESILIENCE AND AGENCY COORDINATION
The four NEHRP agencies, although comprising a critical core group
for building earthquake knowledge, constitute only part of the national
research and application enterprise on which earthquake resilience is
based. In the applications area, virtually every agency that builds or oper-
ates facilities contributes to the goals of NEHRP by adopting practices or
codes to reduce earthquake impacts. These agencies include the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers and the Departments of Transportation, Energy, and
Housing and Urban Development. Beyond the role of the federal agen -
cies, government agencies at all levels similarly play a critical role in the
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8 NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE RESILIENCE
application of earthquake knowledge, as does the private sector, especially
in the area of building design. Altogether, the contributors to reducing
earthquake losses constitute a complex enterprise that goes far beyond
the scope of NEHRP. But NEHRP provides an important focus for this
far-flung endeavor. The committee considers that an analysis to determine
whether coordination among all organizations that contribute to NEHRP
could be improved would be useful and timely.
IMPLEMENTING NEHRP KNOWLEDGE
Most critical decisions that reduce earthquake vulnerability and man-
age earthquake risk are made in the private sector by individuals and
companies. The information provided by NEHRP, if made available in an
understandable format and accompanied by diffusion processes, can greatly
assist citizens in their decision-making. For example, maps of active faults,
unstable ground, and historic seismicity can influence where people choose
to live, and maps of relative ground shaking can guide building design.
NEHRP will have accomplished its fundamental purpose—an
earthquake-resilient nation—when those responsible for earthquake risk
and for managing the consequences of earthquake events use the knowl-
edge and services created by NEHRP and other related endeavors to make
our communities more earthquake resilient. Increasing resiliency requires
awareness of earthquake risk, knowing what to do to address that risk, and
doing it. But providing information is not enough to achieve resilience—the
diffusion of NEHRP knowledge and implementation of that knowledge
are necessary corollaries. Successfully diffusing NEHRP knowledge into
communities and among the earthquake professionals, state and local gov-
ernment officials, building owners, lifeline operators, and others who have
the responsibility for how buildings, systems, and institutions respond to
and recover from earthquakes, will require a dedicated and strategic effort.
This diffusion role reflects the limited authority that resides with federal
agencies in addressing the earthquake threat. Local and state governments
have responsibility for public safety and welfare, including powers to
regulate land use to avoid hazards, establish and enforce building codes to
withstand earthquake forces, provide warnings to threatened communities,
and respond to an event. The goals and objectives of NEHRP are aimed at
supporting and facilitating measures to improve resilience through private
owners and businesses, and supporting local and state agencies in carrying
out their duties. Although implementing NEHRP knowledge should move
ahead expeditiously, it is also essential that the frontiers of knowledge
be advanced in concert, requiring that improving understanding of the
earthquake threat, reducing risk, and developing the processes to motivate
implementation actions, should all be continuing endeavors.
