A new tool to simulate ground shaking and earthquake losses

Abstract The main purpose of SISMOTOOL suite is Planning and Management of Seismic Emergencies face to a future earthquake. This tool is written in ARCGIS software executing a fast and efficient determination of the estimated damage scenarios (pre-process) and a correlation with the observed damage results (post-process). First of all, the tool allows to select the earthquake source parameters through a defined database; moreover, several attenuation laws can be chosen and they can be combined according to the study area features. In addition, the local site effects are characterized from Vs30 values, which have been achieved by: i) topographic slope as a proxy obtained from Digital Elevation Model; ii) considering Vs30 values acquired from active and/or passive empirical methods; iii) a combination of both procedures through empirical local correlation laws. In the second place, the elements exposed to risk are incorporated by an automatic extraction from the cadastral database after inputs has been refined. Thirdly, vulnerability and estimated losses can be determined either empirically (EMS98 scale and Vulnerability Index, Iv) or analytically (Capacity spectrum). Additionally, a vulnerability modifier is implemented to account soil-structure resonance. Finally, SISMOTOOL quantifies the epistemic uncertainties in the input parameters using a logic tree. Last, but not least, SISMOTOOL results have been validated through a representative seismic scenario: the 1910 Adra earthquake (southern Spain) with moment magnitude (Mw) 6.3 and macroseismic intensity VIII (EMS98 scale) proves the reliability of SISMOTOOL program.