Quantitative Assessment of Epistemic Uncertainties in Tsunami Hazard Effects on Building Risk Assessments

• Main Authors: Yo Fukutani, Anawat Suppasri, Fumihiko Imamura
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2018-01-01
• Series: Geosciences
• Subjects: tsunami hazard uncertainty; tsunami risk; risk quantification; quantitative effect
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/8/1/17

Based on the definition of tsunami risk, we quantitatively evaluated the annual expected tsunami loss ratio (Tsunami Risk Index) and clarified the quantitative effects of epistemic uncertainties in tsunami hazard assessments on the tsunami risk of buildings by combining probabilistic information regarding tsunami inundation depths at target points and tsunami fragility assessments of buildings. For the risk assessment, we targeted buildings with four different structures (reinforced concrete, steel, brick, wood) located in three different areas (Soma, Sendai, Kesennuma). In conclusion, we demonstrated that the expected tsunami risk could vary by approximately two orders of magnitude when considering tsunami hazard uncertainties between the 95th percentile and the 5th percentile. In addition, we quantitatively clarified the fact that we cannot properly understand the tsunami risk by evaluating the tsunami fragility alone. For example, the analysis results indicate that the tsunami risk of a wood building located in Kesennuma is lower than that of a reinforced concrete building located in either Soma or Sendai.