Seismic risk assessment for the North Eastern Region of India by integrating seismic hazard and social vulnerability

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ABSTRACT

The present study aims at conducting a comprehensive seismic risk assessment for the North Eastern Region of India at regional and sub-regional levels by integrating probabilistic seismic hazard and social vulnerability assessments. Bedrock-level peak ground acceleration varied from 0.14 to 0.69g for the return period of 475 years. Using PCA, the social vulnerability index (SVI) was generated considering district-level socioeconomic indicators. Built environment quality, illiteracy, access to amenities, dependent population, and employment opportunities contributed to high SVI. Most vulnerable districts were concentrated in the Brahmaputra floodplains, Tripura fold belt, and Imphal valley. At the regional level, significant parts of Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, and Tripura lie in moderate to very high-risk zones. At the sub-regional level, Nagaland accounts for the highest proportion of areas in high to very high-risk zones. The findings will aid site-specific resilient infrastructure design, disaster risk reduction, and effective resource allocation for the risk-prone areas.

KEYWORDS:

• PSHA
• vulnerability index
• cluster analysis
• disaster risk reduction
• geospatial analysis

Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Disclosure Statement

The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) reviewed the anonymised abstract of the article, but had no role in the peer review process nor the final editorial decision.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Conceptualization: JD; Methodology: NA, LG, JD; Formal analysis and investigation: NA, LG; Validation: NA, LG, JD; Visualization: NA, LG; Writing - original draft preparation: NA, LG; Writing - review and editing: JD, SKD; Resources: JD; Supervision: JD.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The Article Publishing Charge (APC) for this article is funded by the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI). The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.