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The assemblage of a building inventory is necessary for the evaluation of seismic impact scenarios at the territorial scale. Building inventory, representing the distribution of building vulnerability classes at the territorial scale, could be performed at different levels of detail, depending on the size of the building stock, the territorial unit of analysis and on the adopted vulnerability model. Census-based data are usually employed as primary source for building inventory. A recent advancement towards compilation of regional scale inventories is provided by the interview-based Cartis approach, implemented in Italy within "Territorial themes" Reluis project, financed by the Italian Civil Protection Department. This paper proposes a first comparison of the results in terms of building inventory and the subsequent impact assessment that are obtained using Census (CE) and Cartis-based (CA) data for a town in southern Italy; a probabilistic framework for inventory is applied. Different vulnerability models are adopted and results compared. Moreover, a simple procedure that combines the informative levels present in the two approaches is proposed, allowing a mixed-type inventory from Census and Cartis data (CC) to be used for seismic impact assessment. Results of the application show that the inventory and related damage distribution changes as a function of the method adopted and in relation to the parameters considered for building classification in the vulnerability model. Comparing the impact in terms of a mean value of damage over the entire municipality, d m , calculated for various seismic intensities and starting from CE, CA and CC inventory, it is seen that the CC inventory is generally more conservative with respect to CA and CE for all the vulnerability methods, and a maximum scatter of approximately 45% in terms of d m is obtained for the considered application with one of the vulnerability methods. • The paper presents simplified methods to assemble building inventory. • Initial considered databases for building inventory are census returns and a newly developed interview-based database. • First comparison of the results on building inventory and damage assessment obtained using three types of building inventory. • Different vulnerability methods are considered for building classification and expected damage calculation. • The method is applied for a case study town in southern Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents a comprehensive ground response study for the municipality of Villa Collemandina in Northern Tuscany (Italy). This site was selected following a macroseismic analysis of the 1920 Garfagnana earthquake (M w=6.5), which, at Villa Collemandina, produced damage and losses that were larger than at any other site near the earthquake epicentre, thus indicating the presence of possible site effects. Hence, both experimental and numerical methods are applied in order to investigate the ground response at different locations within the Villa Collemandina municipality. Results obtained from the spectral analysis of earthquake recordings using the reference site method and those from a 2-dimensional dynamic simulation reveal the presence of site effects due to the buried geomorphology (basin-like effects), allowing us to explain the severe damage and losses produced by the 1920 Garfagnana earthquake. As a further result, horizontal to vertical spectral ratio techniques and 1D soil modelling are proved to be inadequate for an effective characterization of the ground response at sites that, like Villa Collemandina, present a complex local geology. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper are presented the results of integrated investigations aimed at building a reference geological model for the seismic microzonation of Celano municipality (Central Italy). The study area is located along the northern rim of the Fucino basin, which is an intermontane half-graben filled by thick Plio-Quaternary alluvial and lacustrine deposits and is surrounded by Meso-Cenozoic limestone and Neogene sandstone relieves, with mean elevation around 1500m a.s.l., that also represent the bedrock units of the basin itself. Evidences of recent tectonic activity within the Fucino basin have been pointed out by several paleoseismological studies recently performed to better frame the effects of the seismogenic structures responsible for the Ms 7.0, 1915 Avezzano earthquake and other historical and prehistoric seismic events occurred in the area. On the basis of integrated site and laboratory investigations, such as surface geological surveys, borehole logging, isotope geochemical analyses based on 230Th/234U dating method, geotechnical investigation and hydrogeological prospecting, the geological model of the area was built. The identification of such model was fundamental in view of correct planning and development of further investigations and analyses, mainly based on geophysical methods and seismic response modelling, carried out by other research teams cooperating within the Celano seismic microzonation project. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper the results of the numerical analyses, related to a site of the Abruzzo Region (Celano-AQ), finalized to the evaluations of site effects, are shown. The aim of the work was to give a methodology and results that can be used in seismic risk analysis, at the level of urban planning. Therefore, a series of geologic, geomorphologic, geotechnical and geophysical analyses have been carried out to characterize the lithological units and to identify the areas affected by site effects. The expected seismic inputs are individuated and two-dimensional numerical analyses have been done. The results are presented in terms of elastic pseudo-acceleration spectra and amplification factors, computed as the ratio between spectral intensity of output and input, in the period ranges 0.1–0.5 and 0.1–2.5s. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A quantitative prediction of seismic site effects requires the definition of a subsoil parametric model for ground motion numerical modelling. This paper describes an application of integrated geophysical methods to define an earthquake engineering parametric model for the seismic zonation of the municipal area of Celano, Italy. In municipal areas of such extent, particularly in case of complex geology, subsurface characterization is an optimization procedure, where the objective function to be minimized is the uncertainty related to the subsoil features, under the constraint of fixed resources and logistical limitations. In the particular case of Celano, correlation between different geophysical results was very profitable in discriminating different geological scenarios in the historical centre and in areas designed for urban expansion, while defining the elastic properties of the near-surface deposits throughout the municipal area. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]