A Geospatial Decision Support Tool for Seismic Risk Management: Florence (Italy) Case Study

Seismic risk assessment, which attempts to predict earthquake-induced physical impacts on structures and infrastructures, casualties and losses can be a powerful tool to support emergency response planning as well as the development of effective mitigation strategies. The Civil Protection (CP) Department of Florence Municipality commissioned this study as historical earthquakes showed an appreciable seismic risk for the city that needed careful civil protection planning. A Decision Support System DSS (CIPCast-ES) developed by ENEA, APIC Lab, in the framework of the EU-funded project CIPRNet, was used to simulate the seismic and impact scenarios for two major historical earthquakes felt in Florence, to assess the earthquake-induced damage at single building level, and the relative expected consequences on population. The possibility to account for the seismic microzonation (i.e. the possible amplification of the seismic hazard and therefore of the expected impacts due to soil conditions) was also included within DSS. The results of the scenario analysis, presented in the paper in tabular format, were provided to the CP of Florence Municipality as queryable, interactive and end-user friendly web-version maps.