Seismic Risk Model for the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Region, China: Considering Epistemic Uncertainty from the Seismic Hazard Models

Abstract

Abstract This study presents a probabilistic seismic risk model for the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region in China. The model comprises a township-level residential building exposure model, a vulnerability model derived from the Chinese building taxonomy, and a regional probabilistic seismic hazard model. The three components are integrated by a stochastic event-based method of the OpenQuake engine to assess the regional seismic risk in terms of average annual loss and exceedance probability curve at the city, province, and regional levels. The novelty and uniqueness of this study are that a probabilistic seismic risk model for the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region in China is developed by considering the impact of site conditions and epistemic uncertainty from the seismic hazard model.

Keywords

• Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region
• Epistemic uncertainty
• Seismic risk assessment
• Seismic risk model