COMPARING TWO-STAGE STOCHASTIC PROGRAMMING AND OTHER PROBABILISTIC METHODS FOR RESOURCE ALLOCATION FOR REGIONAL EARTHQUAKE RISK MITIGATION

This paper is presented with the aim of finding optimum methodology to prioritize the seismic risk mitigation strategies in earthquake hazard prone areas and financing them، which could help decision makers in earthquake risk mitigation process. Therefore، a two-stage stochastic model is developed to optimize funds allocation for risk reduction measures (retrofitting of buildings) and reconstruction measures after potential earthquakes in a regional level. The proposed stochastic model seeks optimized strategy towards risk reduction based on minimizing various criteria such as mitigation expenditures، reconstruction costs، and excess reconstruction expenditures induced by probable earthquakes. This paper is presenting the methodology، main components of proposed model and practical application through a pilot study، taking into account، regional seismic hazard، building stocks and building vulnerability functions for Tehran. In order to investigate the consideration of uncertainty related to probable earthquakes in proposed model and illustrate the advantages and excellence capabilities of stochastic programming compared to other approaches، which consider the probability in the process of finding optimum earthquake risk mitigation measures and strategies، such approaches are discussed here and some pilot studies are designed and performed based on these approaches، as well. All model parameters related to these approaches are similar to the proposed stochastic programming model. The results of these pilot studies are compared with the pilot analyses done based on proposed stochastic programing. Furthermore، the key values: “the expected value of perfect information” and “the value of stochastic solution” which are used to demonstrate the advantages of considering stochastic programing are presented.