Damage Assessment in Italy, and Experiences After Recent Earthquakes on Reparability and Repair Costs

Recent devastating earthquakes outlined the importance of quantifying losses and the amount of resources needed for the reconstruction process. The restoration of public or residential buildings in the aftermath of the seismic event may significantly affect national economy. This remarks the primary role and crucial need of having accurate predictions of direct and indirect costs for reconstruction in order to plan effective risk mitigation strategies and perform reliable loss scenarios. The recent Italian seismic events have been a unique occasion to collect observational data on existing buildings. The present work, based on the Italian experience of recent earthquakes, aims at discussing the main aspects related to the damage assessment of residential buildings and reconstruction models together with the huge amount of data collected in the reconstruction processes. In particular, an in-depth analysis of the data provided by the reconstruction process of 2009 L’Aquila earthquake is reported focussing on repair and strengthening intervention costs as a function of the empirical damage, repairability issues, and assistance to population costs. The data are discussed separately for reinforced concrete and masonry residential buildings and refers about 10,100 buildings located Outside Historical Centres (OHC) and Inside Historical Centres (IHC). Finally, the criteria adopted for the definition of the building seismic risk classes at the base of the Italian guidelines for seismic risk classification of constructions are presented together with recent policies adopted in Italy in terms of fiscal deduction for strengthening interventions on private residential buildings.