Recent seismic events show that urban areas are increasingly vulnerable to seismic damage, which leads to unprecedented levels of risk. Cities are complex systems and as such their analysis requires a good understanding of the interactions between space and the socioeconomic variables characteristic of the inhabitants of urban space. There is a clear need to develop and test detailed models that describe the behavior of these interactions under seismic impact. This article develops an overall vulnerability index to seismic hazard based on a spatial approach applied to Bucharest, Romania, the most earthquake-prone capital in the European Union. The methodology relies on: (1) spatial post-processed socioeconomic data from the 2011 Romanian census through multicriteria analysis; and (2) analytical methods (the Improved Displacement Coefficient Method and custom-defined vulnerability functions) for estimating damage patterns, incorporated in a GIS environment. We computed vulnerability indices for the 128 census tracts of the city. Model sensitivity assessment tested the robustness of spatially identified patterns of building vulnerability in the face of uncertainty in model inputs. The results show that useful seismic vulnerability indices can be obtained through interdisciplinary approaches that enhance less detailed datasets, which leads lead to better targeted mitigation efforts.

Due to their widespread and continuous expansion, transportation networks are considerably exposed to natural hazards such as earthquakes, floods, landslides or hurricanes. The vulnerability of specific segments and structures among bridges, tunnels, pumps or storage tanks can translate not only into direct losses but also into significant indirect losses at the systemic level. Cascading effects such as post-event traffic congestion, building debris or tsunamis can contribute to an even greater level of risk. To support the effort of modeling the natural hazards' implications at the full transportation network scale, we developed a new applicable framework, relying on (i) GIS to define, analyze and represent transportation networks; (ii) methods for determining the probability of network segments to fail due to natural-hazard effects; (iii) Monte Carlo simulation for multiple scenario generation; (iv) methods to analyze the implications of connectivity loss on emergency intervention times and transit disruption; and (v) correlations with other vulnerability and risk indicators. Currently, the framework is integrated into ArcGIS Desktop as a toolbox entitled “Network-risk”, which makes use of the ModelBuilder functions and is free to download and modify. Network-risk is an attempt to bring together interdisciplinary research with the goal of creating an automated solution to deliver insights on how a transportation network can be affected by natural hazards, directly and indirectly, assisting in risk evaluation and mitigation planning. In this article we present and test Network-risk at the full urban scale for the road network of Bucharest. This city is one of Europe's most exposed capitals to earthquakes, with high seismic-hazard values and a vulnerable building stock but also significant traffic congestion problems not yet accounted for in risk analyses and risk reduction strategies.

The aim of this article is to analyze the background, current status, and outlook of seismic monitoring products and services in Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine. These countries manage seismic networks that contribute to the European Integrated Data Archive node in the framework of the Observatories and Research Facilities for European Seismology, which represents a collaborative effort in coordinating observational seismology across the European region through the collection, archiving, and dissemination of seismic waveform data, metadata, and related products. All of the aforementioned countries share a common threat: strong earthquakes occurring in the Vrancea area located in central-eastern Romania at intermediate depths (usually in the 60–180 km interval). Events such as the ones on 10 November 1940 and 4 March 1977 generated high damage in Romania, northern Bulgaria, and Moldova. In addition to Vrancea, crustal earthquakes in areas such as Shabla or Dulovo can lead to cross-border damage. Therefore, understanding the way national seismic networks are distributed, how they cooperate, and the products and services that they provide in (near) real time and their terms is of significant interest in the context of necessary hazard harmonization and joint emergency intervention and risk mitigation actions.