Sustainability and Resilience: Challenges and Opportunities in Seismic Risk Prevention, Mitigation and Adaptation—2nd Edition

Dear Colleagues,

The challenge of humanity against the forces of nature is a longstanding issue. Remarkable research has been carried out towards the analysis and the prevention of seismic risk. However, nowadays, complex and highly organised societies, where human, social, political, and environmental dimensions are strongly interconnected and constantly evolving, pose new fascinating challenges for research and development. The focus in seismic risk prevention is no longer only on safeguarding human life, but also on guaranteeing undamaged or low-damaged infrastructures and buildings, to preserve their contents and service functionality, and on empowering communities to become resilient by promoting their awareness and capacities. This in the aim of continuing living and working in the aftermath of a severe seismic event, and guaranteeing a resilient recovery after a catastrophic event by resuming timely pre-disaster conditions and by promoting an improved new-normal, where changes imposed by the disaster are turned into opportunities for positive changes. All these aims must be pursued in a sustainable way, i.e., trying to meet current needs without compromising future generations, such as by taking out mortgages that they would not be able to pay off. From this perspective, to provide some examples, sustainable urban planning for risk mitigation should be promoted; the conservation of cultural heritage buildings that do not satisfy current safety requirements should be considered and pursued by changing, for example, their current use, so that their possible earthquake induced damage do not pose a risk to human lives and to the functionality of essential services; the preservation of intangible aspects and values of the society should be accounted for and endeavoured; etc.

This Sustainability Special Issue aims, therefore, to collect contributions on innovative approaches and methods for a resilient and sustainable prevention, mitigation, and adaptation of seismic risk.

Topics covered by this Special Issue, encompass, among others, the following:

(a) Seismic hazard assessment from the geophysical, seismological, and geotechnical  viewpoint, welcoming contributions from scientists of the physical community and contributions on ground and remote monitoring technologies targeting the seismic microzoning and the characterisation of local seismic responses.

(b) Seismic vulnerability assessment of the existing built environment targeting both buildings and structures, with a particular focus on strategic and critical infrastructures.

(c) Innovative low-damage design approaches and technologies.

(d) Sustainable and energy efficient technologies for seismic retrofitting of existing structures and infrastructures.

(e) Structural health monitoring innovative sensors and approaches for data processing.

(f) Societal vulnerability assessment.

(g) Innovative approaches for promoting education, awareness and capacity building in communities.

(h) Innovative frameworks, strategies and tools to support an effective and timely emergency management, and a resilient response and recovery.

(i) Best practices and lesson learnt (including evidences on what went wrong and can, therefore, be improved) after recent catastrophic events.

(j) Seismic risk mitigation policies and risk-based insurance.

This Special Issue will be promoted by attracting the attention of renowned scientists in different domains who will be called to contribute.

This Special Issue will be structured into three different sections, each devoted to a specific domain which the topic of this Special Issue aims to consider.

Part 1: Geological and geophysical aspects

In the first section, we will call for contributions dealing with the current understandings of geo-seismic phenomena, their monitoring and the environmental assessments needed to gather thorough land knowledge useful for supporting safer and more resilient infrastructures.

Part 2: Structural aspects (infrastructure, strategic structures, …)

The second section will focus on technical aspects for building resilient infrastructures in the different domains (residential and industrial buildings, transport infrastructures, etc.).

Part 3: Prevention, risk analysis of disaster management

The third section will host contributions on prevention, prediction and disaster management as relevant components of the emergency management cycle.

Dr. Maurizio Pollino
Dr. Sonia Giovinazzi
Prof. Dr. Paolo Clemente
Guest Editors

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