Probabilistic Regional Liquefaction Hazard and Risk Analysis: A Case Study of Residential Buildings in Alameda, California
Abstract
The impact of liquefaction on a regional scale is not well understood or modeled with traditional approaches. This paper presents a method to quantitatively assess liquefaction hazard and risk on a regional scale, accounting for uncertainties in soil properties, groundwater conditions, ground-shaking parameters, and empirical liquefaction potential index equations. The regional analysis is applied to a case study to calculate regional occurrence rates for the extent and severity of liquefaction and to quantify losses resulting from ground shaking and liquefaction damage to residential buildings. We present a regional-scale metric to quantify the extent and severity of liquefaction. A sensitivity analysis on epistemic uncertainty indicates that the two most important factors on output liquefaction maps are the empirical liquefaction equation, emphasizing the necessity of incorporating multiple equations in future regional studies, and the ground motion model, highlighting the same necessity for the peak ground acceleration input. Furthermore, the disaggregation of seismic sources reveals that triggering earthquakes for various extents of liquefaction originate from multiple sources, though primarily nearby faults and large magnitude ruptures. This finding indicates the value of adopting regional probabilistic analysis in future studies to capture the diverse sources and spatial distribution of liquefaction.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available in a repository online in accordance with funder data retention policies (Mongold 2023).
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Laurie Baise, Kevin Befus, Scott Brandenberg, Brett Maurer, Anne Wein, and Liam Wotherspoon for feedback, data, and helpful discussions. The authors thank Neetesh Sharma for help with the ground motion generation and Ádám Zsarnóczay for help with nearest neighbor interpolation. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. DGE-1656518 and CMMI-2053014. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Natural Hazards Review
Volume 25 • Issue 4 • November 2024
Copyright
© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 8, 2023
Accepted: Jun 10, 2024
Published online: Aug 22, 2024
Published in print: Nov 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Jan 22, 2025
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Analysis (by type)
- Case studies
- Disaster risk management
- Disasters and hazards
- Engineering fundamentals
- Geohazards
- Geomechanics
- Geotechnical engineering
- Geotechnical investigation
- Ground motion
- Mathematics
- Methodology (by type)
- Natural disasters
- Probability
- Research methods (by type)
- Risk management
- Sensitivity analysis
- Soil liquefaction
- Soil mechanics
- Soil properties
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