A review of seismic vulnerability assessments in Central America

For effective earthquake risk reduction, an accurate representation of seismic risk is needed. Thus, assessments of seismic vulnerability–an important component of seismic risk–need to be reliable. Central America is a highly seismically active region with a history of large physical and economic losses from earthquake events, however literature concerning the seismic vulnerability of buildings in the region is scarce. To address this gap we have completed an extensive search for and review of documentation reporting seismic vulnerability assessments in the region, collated it into a database, developed and applied a framework for appraising the document quality, and compared the different results. The study concludes that Central American seismic vulnerability assessments are few in number and are not easily available, and that the assessment methodologies used are poorly described, simplistic, and aged and produce vulnerability estimations that vary widely, impacting significantly on loss estimations. Ultimately, this paper highlights the need for an improved understanding of the seismic vulnerability of buildings in Central America.