Learning from Earthquakes: a Survey of Surveys

This paper presents a literature review of efforts to learn from earthquakes: collecting, archiving, and disseminating information. The emphasis is on primary sources, i.e., data-gathering instruments or investigations that include direct observation of earthquake effects. The study addresses seismology and geotechnical engineering; safety and damage to individual buildings; performance of large numbers of buildings and of particular structure types; damage to nonstructural components, lifelines, and industrial equipment; socioeconomic impacts including casualties and business interruption; insurance loss data; and methods and databases that characterize existing facilities. The present paper also examines a few efforts to aggregate data across studies, to incorporate data into predictive models, or to disseminate information for use by others, with attention to how well primary sources meet these needs. A number of common themes appear in the publications examined here. These include the need to document for both data-gatherers and readers clear procedures and definitions; the value of publishing raw data and data-gathering instruments to support conclusions and to allow for aggregating data with efforts by others; the value of standard facilitydescription and damage categorization systems; avoidance of data loss by publishing in multiple formats and media; the value of coordinating datagathering efforts and disseminating common tools and databases; the need to provide for statistical analysis; the danger of over-aggregation; the value of providing incentives to survey respondents; the importance of dense instrumentation; the use of predictive tools for data-gathering; and the need for a permanent, curated earthquake experience data archive.