Glossary1

IJPP ­ Italian Journal of Planning Practice 127Vol. III, issue 1 ­ 2013

ISSN: 2239­267X

Architects, PhD in Urbanl Planning
Dipartimento Design, Tecnologia dell'Architettura, Territorio e Ambiente ­ Sapienza Università di Roma

Giacomina Di Salvo

within a different approach. In this specific case, they reflect the point of view of urban
planning.

Some of the following definitions have a rather different meaning in a different disciplinary fields, or1

SEISMIC RISK
is the result of interaction between the earthquake and the main
characteristics of the community which is exposed to the event. It is defined
as the set of possible effects that an earthquake can produce in a specific
area, in relation to its intensity and its probability of occurrence. The
determination of risk is linked to three main factors:

Seismic hazard
It expresses the probability that, in a given time interval, an area is
affected by earthquakes that can produce damage. It depends on: the type
of earthquake, the distance from the epicentre, and geological properties
of the place. It does not depend on structural features of buildings and
other constructions.



IJPP ­ Italian Journal of Planning Practice 128Vol. III, issue 1 ­ 2013

Di Salvo ­ Glossary

URBAN RESILIENCE
It is defined as the “capability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from
significant multi­hazard threats with minimum damage to public safety and
health, the economy, and security"2 of a given urban area. Most discussion
of urban resilience is focused currently on three distinct threats: climate
change, natural disasters and terrorism.
REDUNDANCY
It is a word borrowed from engineering language, where it means the
duplication of critical components or functions of a system (as in case of
safety systems) with the intention of increasing its reliability.
In urban planning, in order to improve earthquake protection, it means the
duplication of some strategic components (such as alternative pathways, safe
open spaces, or strategic buildings) to assure an efficient functioning of the urban
system even in the case when some components collapse after a catastrophic
event.

Vulnerability
It assesses the possibility that a city or some of its buildings will suffer
damage or changes after an earthquake. It measures the loss (or the
reduction) of efficiency of an urban system and its remaining capacity to
carry out and ensure the functions developed in 'normal' conditions. For a
building, the vulnerability depends on the materials, its construction
characteristics and the state of maintenance, and expresses their resistance to
earthquakes. At urban scale it depends also on morphological and
typological features (urban structure, settlement pattern, building types, etc.).
Exposure
It measures the importance of an object (a building or an urban
settlement) exposed to the risk in relation, for example, to its function.
It could be defined by quantifying how many people a building (or a
city) generally hosts, as related to its function (housing, commerce,
public or collective facilities, culture and entertainment, etc).

Cfr. Wikipedia2



IJPP ­ Italian Journal of Planning Practice 129Vol. III, issue 1 ­ 2013

REFERENCES

http://www.protezionecivile.gov.it/minisite/index.php?dir_pk=249&cms_pk=14839
http://www.rete.toscana.it/sett/pta/sismica/01informazione/info/rischio_sismico/index.h
tm
WILBANKS T. (2007), "The Research Component of the Community and Regional

Resilience Initiative (CARRI)". Presentation at the Natural Hazards Centre,
University of Colorado­Boulder

COAFFEE J. (2008), "Risk, resilience, and environmentally sustainable cities", in
Energy Policy, Vol. 36 (12).

Di Salvo ­ Glossary