At the Intersection of Research, Practice, and Standards in Performance-Based Earthquake Engineering: Seismic Hazard, Ground Motions, and Numerical Simulation

I just googled “what would happen if there were no earthquakes?” Here is the most valuable answer I found: “Erosion would take place and the land would be reduced to a single flat plane. We would also lose our flora and fauna as well as the loss of elevation would cause rivers to lose their principal source of water.” I then googled “why do people live in seismic areas?” One answer led me to an interesting article titled “Fatal Attraction: Living with Earthquakes, the Growth of Villages into Megacities, and Earthquake Vulnerability in the Modern World.” Here I found more valuable content: “Earthquake faulting, and the topography it produces, is largely responsible for the water resources and for the locations of habitations and agriculture, as well as some building materials…..Habitations concentrate around the edges of these regions, at the range fronts, because their locations are on trade routes, are of strategic importance controlling access, or are near water supplies.¹”. Thus earthquakes are the violent disruptions that have created regions of dynamic biodiversity and geologic features that are the ideal environment for prosperous human settlement. New Zealand, Italy, and California are my favorite examples of such regions, of course!

In this presentation we will explore the many hows, whats, and whys of performance-based earthquake engineering. We will explore the interconnected roles of research, practice, and standards in past, present, and future earthquake-risk mitigation. As is always my goal: expect to leave our encounter with more questions than when you arrived.