A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF STRATEGIES FOR PROMOTION OF RETROFITTING OF LOW EARTHQUAKE-RESISTANT STRUCTURES IN US AND JAPAN

Recent damaging earthquakes have clearly revealed that retrofitting low earthquake-resistant structures is the key issue for earthquake disaster reduction. However, retrofitting activities are not carried out seriously especially for non-public structures. Some local governments in California, US are promoting retrofitting more successfully than those in Japan, by providing various kinds of economic incentives for it. We have investigated the current strategies for successful retrofitting promotion mainly in the San Francisco Bay Area through interviews and reference collection. By comparing strategies both in US and Japan, some clues for improving retrofitting incentive programs in Japan are presented.