The impact of behavior on the risk of injury and death during an earthquake: a simulation-based study

Stav Shapira (), Tsafrir Levi (), Yaron Bar-Dayan () and Limor Aharonson-Daniel ()
Additional contact information
Stav Shapira: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Tsafrir Levi: Geological Survey of Israel
Yaron Bar-Dayan: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Limor Aharonson-Daniel: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2018, vol. 91, issue 3, No 12, 1059-1074

Abstract: Abstract The use of casualty modeling in the field of disaster management is well established. Nevertheless, it is currently based almost exclusively on damage to the built environment and fails to consider additional factors that may influence the number of casualties in a given event, such as behavioral features of the exposed population. The present study has taken an innovative approach and integrated behavioral traits of residents in a high-risk area in northern Israel, near the Dead Sea Transform, into a well-known casualty estimation simulation. The expected behavioral characteristics of residents during an earthquake, in city sectors with different socioeconomic rankings, were assessed using a designated survey and were applied into the casualty estimation process. In order to test the sensitivity of the behavioral factor, twelve synthetic earthquake scenarios were designed. The results shed light on the relationship between specific behavioral strategies and casualty projections and suggest that loss estimation models that do not take behavioral factors into account may overestimate the projected number of casualties. Households with low socioeconomic status were found to be more vulnerable in terms of risk of injury and death compared with those ranked higher. The present study shows the importance of raising public awareness regarding proper behavior prior to and during the event which can help increase resilience of communities, mitigate risks and losses and ultimately save lives. Further implications of these results and possible ways of improving casualty modeling and community resilience are also discussed.

Keywords: Earthquake; Casualty modeling; Self-protective behavior; Socioeconomic status; Disaster resilience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-018-3167-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:91:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s11069-018-3167-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-018-3167-5

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().