The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Invitational Workshop Proceedings, May 14-15, 1998: Defining the Links Between Planning, Policy Analysis, Economics and Earthquake Engineering

Comerio, Mary C.; Gordon, Peter

PEER-1998/04, Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1998-09-01, 84 pages (400/P33/98-04)

The Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center is committed to integrating social science and earthquake engineering research. How should integration proceed? What can social scientists contribute to PEER's interest in performance-based engineering? These and other questions were addressed at the PEER workshop that was convened to help develop an appropriate research agenda. Generally, it appears that, whereas performance-based engineering seeks optimal solutions to the achievement of given standards, social scientists can contribute to the derivation of optimal standards. In this sense, the complementarity of social science and earthquake engineering is clear. The details, of course, are where the interesting issues lie. There is no single social science perspective. And, the aggregation of individuals' preferences to some social welfare function from which optimal standards of structural design can be inferred is problematic. These two thoughts were repeated in various forms throughout the two days of the workshop. Day One featured three papers by social scientists who were not known for previous research in the earthquake field but who were expected to be insightful. Their presentations as well as commentary from three discussants and discussions from the workshop participants set the stage. Follow-up group discussions on Day Two sought to translate the discussions into tangible research questions. The proceedings papers are entitled: Earthquake! The use of economics, engineering, and statistical information to invest in seismic safety, by John M. Quigley (Discussant: A. H.-S. Ang); Balancing the risk ledger: public and private choices regarding earthquake safety, by Lynn Scarlett (Discussant: Martin Wachs); and Political engineering for earthquakes, by John W. Ellwood and Linda G. Ellwood (Discussant: Peter May). Suggested research topics, which were submitted by participants prior to the workshop, are included.

Available online: http://peer.berkeley.edu/publications/peer_reports/reports_1998/9804.pdf