Adapting Hazus for seismic risk assessment in Canada

Although earthquakes have been recognised as major natural hazards with the potential to cause loss of life, property damage, and social and economic disruption in Canada, most risk and emergency managers still lack the necessary tools and guidance to adequately undertake rigorous risk assessments. Recently, Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has adopted Hazus, a standardized best-practice methodology developed by the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for estimating potential losses from common natural hazards, such as earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes. Hazus combines science, engineering knowledge, and mathematical modelling with geographic information systems technology to estimate physical damage and economic and social losses. Besides the ground shaking, the earthquake model considers landslide, liquefaction, and fault rupture susceptibilities. Depending on the severity of the resulting transient ground motion and permanent ground deformation, five potential damage states (none, slight, moderate, extensive, complete) are employed to estimate the amount of structural damage and consequent economic and social losses. This note reports some of the typical features of the recently adapted Hazus earthquake model, with an emphasis on the considerations of earthquake-induced hazards, and overviews the ongoing activities and potential challenges in implementing this model in Canada.