engleski

Earthquake Risk Assessment for Republic of Croatia: challenges and opportunities

Croatia is located in a seismically active region of southern Europe, where strong earthquakes have occurred in the past resulting in many casualties and significant destruction of the built environment. Earthquake-prone regions of Croatia cover about 30% of its territory. The urban areas of Zagreb, Split, Dubrovnik and Rijeka with about 60% of the country’s population are of particular economic and social importance. Zagreb itself as the administrative, cultural, scientific, economic and traffic network center accounts for almost 20% of the population and about one third of the country’s GDP. Along with the seismic hazard, the factor contributing to country’s seismic risk is certainly aged building stock. More than 40 % of the dwellings were built more than 50 years ago, thus already exceeding their normal service life. Furthermore, many essential structures such as hospitals, schools and other public buildings were often not designed for any seismic loads as the first official seismic regulations were published after devastating Skopje earthquake in 1963. Following this disastrous event with more than 1000 fatalities, scientists, technical experts and the general public in the region became aware of the potential threat and consequences from earthquakes. As many years have passed since then, this seems to have been forgotten, although seismic risk has been officially identified as one of the three highest risks (along with wildfires and floods) and unacceptable for the country. National authorities deal with risk assessments and mitigation strategies only periodically and not in the systematic manner, and the state’s financial resources are not being directed to risk reduction activities. Global initiatives, such as Global Earthquake Model (GEM), which help to compensate the lagging and deficiencies in the disaster risk reduction system, are very important for countries such as Croatia, but these initiatives cannot fully face the specific local challenges. For reliable risk assessments essential for systematic mitigation, preparedness and emergency response measures which currently do not exist, the largest problem is the lack of data on assets at risk (there is no building inventory), including massive illegal construction and undocumented reconstructions. Therefore, currently many different risk assessments may be found for the country, applying various approaches and methodology, given by experts from different fields which try to tackle in different ways numerous unknowns in input data. An overview of the current state of risk assessments and risk mitigation activities is presented in this paper from the perspective of the leading executive for earthquake risk assessments for the Republic of Croatia. All existing results point out the disastrous consequences that an earthquake might cause to the country which has also continuously been facing steady population decline due to the negative natural growth rate and emigration. Finally, recommendations for further strategic actions have been suggested, bearing in mind (pointing out) all consequences and restraints that we are facing in a country like Croatia, what can easily be related to many similar countries, especially in South-Eastern Europe.

seismic risk ; seismic hazard ; exposure ; vulnerability ; risk mitigation

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