Study on the vulnerability assessment of catastrophe earthquake based on RS and GIS and its primary application

The seismic risk is functioned by the probability of seismic intensity and vulnerability of wealth (such as life, property etc.) in a specific space and time domain. The assessment of vulnerability is essential for the post earthquake loss estimation. The practical vulnerability of a building is decided by not only the building type and its anti-earthquake ability in a certain seismic intensity, but many other factors such as the site condition and topography, the status of the building etc. The conventional vulnerability assessment is based on the data with a scale of relatively larger grid size (such as in decimal degree, county or town level). The uncertainty of the vulnerability in this level is not only caused by the uncertainty of vulnerability of individual building, but also strongly affected by the distribution of the exposure building. So the use of exposure data in building or street block level is expected to improve the precision of vulnerability estimation. The paper introduces the assessment method of building vulnerability in street level, estimates and discusses the life vulnerability and loss caused by 2010 Ms7.1 Yushu earthquake, China.