case study l'aquila earthquake

April 6, 2012

April 6, 2009: The L Aquila Earthquake

By David Bressan

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

In the early morning of April 6, 2009 a 20 seconds lasting earthquake with magnitude 6,9 (followed later by weaker aftershocks) occurred near the city of L´Aquila (Abruzzo, Italy).

More than 45 towns were affected, 308 people killed, 1.600 injured and more then 65.000 inhabitants were forced to leave their homes.

Italy has a long and tragic history of earthquakes. The position between two large continental plates (the European and African) and various micro-plates of the Mediterranean Sea results in highly active seismicity all over the peninsula.

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The first map of seismicity of the Mediterranean area and an extensive research on earthquakes in Italy was published in 1857 by the Irish engineer - and self educated geologist - Robert Mallet under the title " Great Neapolitan Earthquake- The First Principles of Observational Seismology ". Mallet got interested in earthquakes in 1830 by a drawing in a natural sciences book, displaying two stone columns twisted by an earthquake in Calabria. He decided to study the forces able to do this to human constructions. In his work he noted that damages on buildings were distributed in distinct areas, setting out from a point of heaviest destruction. These points, the epicentre of an earthquake, were not randomly distributed, but found in " seismic belts " following the Apennine Mountains.

Earthquakes mark the history of the area surrounding L'Aquila and the province of Abruzzo. Historic events or swarms of trembles are recorded for 1315, 1349, 1452, 1461, 1498, 1501, 1646, 1703, 1706, 1791, 1809, 1848 and 1887. One of the most important earthquakes occurred February 2, 1703, causing devastation across much of central Italy and destroying the city of L'Aquila, killing 5.000 people.

The destruction caused by the earthquake of 2009 surprised experts and generated discussions about the anti-seismic building standards adopted in Italy. While most of the medieval structures in rural areas collapsed or were heavily damaged, in L'Aquila most concern arouse from the observation that modern buildings suffered the greatest damage and that the death toll included mostly young people. L'Aquila was a university town and cheap accommodations which suffered severe damage were inhabited by students, also many students died when a dormitory at the University of L'Aquila collapsed. Even some buildings, believed to be "earthquake-proof", collapsed, like parts of the new hospital and various buildings of the government.

Fig.1. The local prefecture damaged by the earthquake, emblem of the situation in Italy, image from Wikipedia-User TheWiz83 May 7, 2009 .

In rural areas the "core" of most of the historic buildings consisted of local material, like stone, superimposed by cement constructions or supplementary floors of recent age. It was this mismatch that caused the collapse of these buildings. In L'Aquila the earthquake of 1703 destroyed most of the older buildings. During reconstruction work first "anti-seismic standards" were introduced - the rebuild houses possessed thicker walls, improved joints between floors and the allowed height of the building was limited.

Many "modern" buildings of the city in contrast were build previously of 1984, before modern anti-seismic buildings standards were introduced in Italy.

However there was and still is a widespread disregard of building standards and the ignorance by people and (in part corrupt) authorities of the seismic hazards. Many concrete elements of the collapsed buildings (like the hospital) " seemed to have been made poorly, possibly with sand ", a common tactic to build fast and cheap by building enterprises controlled by criminal organisations.

The earthquake of L'Aquila was therefore only in part a natural disaster and the manmade catastrophe was strongly misused by Italian politics and many promises made shortly after the earthquake are still unrealized today.

Most alarming were the legal repercussions of the earthquake on science. Based on a general lack of understanding of science by the public and authorities various persons were accused (" Scientists on trial: At fault? " Nature September 14, 2011) to have ignored "premonitory signs" of the earthquake - in form of pseudoscientific claims of dubious veracity and "warnings" mostly published by individuals in the internet.

Bibliography:

TERTULLIANI, A. (2011): Il segni del terremoto sul tessuto urbano. DARWIN No. 42 Marzo/Aprile: 80-83

WALKER, B. (1982): Earthquake. Planet Earth. Time Life Books: 154

Introduction to the special issue “The L’Aquila earthquake 10 years on (2009-2019): impacts and state-of-the-art”

Disaster Prevention and Management

ISSN : 0965-3562

Article publication date: 31 July 2019

Issue publication date: 31 July 2019

Forino, G. and Carnelli, F. (2019), "Introduction to the special issue “The L’Aquila earthquake 10 years on (2009-2019): impacts and state-of-the-art”", Disaster Prevention and Management , Vol. 28 No. 4, pp. 414-418. https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-08-2019-394

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

L’Aquila’s earthquake in April 2009 provoked damage and loss to people, communities, the economy and the environment. Since then, several works have adopted a human and social science perspective (e.g. Carnelli et al. , 2016 ) to unpack different aspects of the emergency and recovery of L’Aquila and nearby areas. This earthquake gave rise to a new generation of Italian scholars embracing this kind of perspective on risk and disaster studies ( Benadusi, 2015 ; Carnelli et al. , 2016 ). We, as guest editors of this special issue of Disaster Prevention and Management: an International Journal , argue that 10 years after the earthquake, there is still need – and perhaps now more than ever – to talk and reflect about it, for at least three main reasons.

First, the aftermath of the L’Aquila earthquake has revealed the potential for analysing disasters from a political angle ( Pelling and Dill, 2010 ). This allows us to reflect on the event as a political issue, and to move strong critiques of the post-disaster state intervention by openly talking about the failure of the nation-state as representation of liberal democracy ( Valent, 2018 ; Forino, Carnelli, Ventura and Tomassi, 2019 ; Forino, Carnelli, Ventura and Valent, 2019 ). Bock (2017) argued that the Italian government (the state), after the event, generated a sense of hope by bringing mass-media in the affected areas and rhetorically claiming “we will never leave you alone”, “we are with you”, “never more these tragedies!”, “housing for all as soon as possible”. A few years later, when it was realized that all these promises had not come to fruition, this hope was replaced by a sense of uncertainty. From an agent of hope, the state became therefore a source of hopelessness and uncertainty, fostering a sense of crisis ( Bock, 2017 ) and undetermined displacement ( Alexander, 2013 ; Carnelli, 2012 ). Despite the huge amount of funds allocated to emergency management ( Ventura, 2010 ), the state intervention in the L’Aquila aftermath was a “second earthquake” ( Bock, 2017 ) [1] that has consequences even today on the everyday life of thousands of citizens that had to regain and reshape their emotions and habits around endless scaffolding, rubble, off-limits zones and work in progress. Instead of being “simply” a crisis induced by a natural hazard, the crisis is essentially a political matter, where inaction and/or neoliberal strategies ( Barrios, 2011, 2017 ), elephantiasic bureaucracy and the corruption of the state and its institutions are deeply intertwined. On this regard, this issue will move critique to the ways the Italian government managed the disaster and will reveal the rhetoric of institutions and of powerful actors, both within and outside the institutions.

Second, we argue that what occurred in L’Aquila in these years can be found in other disaster aftermaths across Italy. We can say that it is possible to identify structural patterns of post-disaster recovery’s impacts that are reproduced on the affected areas in different forms and at different levels ( Bonati et al. , 2019 ). Existing literature ( Alexander, 2010, 2013 ) revealed that L’Aquila recovery presents unique characteristics, particularly in relation to the temporary housing solutions becoming permanent and the economic costs of emergency management ( Ventura, 2010 ). However, we argue that what occurred in L’Aquila can be found in other recovery experiences, particularly post-earthquakes, after 2009 ( http://periferiesurbanes.org/?p=7884&lang=en ). For example, after the earthquakes in the Emilia Romagna region in 2012, Pitzalis demonstrated that a similar top-down governance pattern was applied, totally excluding bottom-up initiatives and local participation in the name of an “emergency paradigm” ( Pitzalis, 2015 ). In a similar vein, the activists/research group Emidio Di Treviri (2018) demonstrated that temporary housing solutions after the earthquakes occurred in Central Italy between 2016 and 2017 did already show a large potential to be permanent, while urban deregulation is increasing socio-spatial fragmentation and driving inequalities, depopulation and the potential loss of entire communities. In this way, this issue will provide useful information to be compared against other case studies in Italy and worldwide.

Third, as a consequence of the first two reasons, L’Aquila is a relevant case study for worldwide disaster studies. We claim that understanding what happened in the L’Aquila aftermath represents a robust background for (but not limited to) disaster scholars aiming to interpreting the medium-long term impacts of post-disaster recovery on society and built environment. Indeed, Italy is not the only country where post-disaster recovery tends to be affected by bottlenecks, delays and corruption. However, it cannot be denied that Italy also represents a country where the long-term tangible and intangible impacts of recovery and reconstruction shape society, economy and built environment of affected areas along decades after the event (e.g. Guidoboni and Valensise, 2011 ). In this regard, paradigmatic is the case of Messina (in the Southern Italy region of Sicily), for which a very recent book by Farinella and Saitta (2019) [2] has revealed the 100 years old mechanisms linking the current socio-economic inequalities of the city with the consequences of reconstruction following the earthquake (and tsunami) in 1908. In this way, we argue that changes occurred into society and built environment of L’Aquila in these 10 years can support an understanding of the city as it is now and as it will be in the near and far future. In this way, this issue shows the potential for disaster recovery in L’Aquila to become a landmark for the city next years (or decades) ahead.

As a consequence of the aforementioned reasons and based on the most recent disaster risk reduction (DRR) literature ( Oliver-Smith et al. , 2016 ; Gaillard, 2019 ; Kelman, 2019 ), it is clear how “disasters are caused by society and societal processes, forming and perpetuating vulnerabilities through activities, attitudes, behaviour, decisions, paradigms, and value” ( Kelman, 2019 , p. 1). To the extent to which we need to address DRR issues at global level we have to, as researchers, understand local ontologies and epistemologies ( Gaillard, 2019 ), acquiring a long-term view on local contexts. Contrary to the representation given by media, policy discourse and even research ( Oliver-Smith et al. , 2016 ), disasters are not unexpected events, rather, long-term processes to be understood through in-depth studies to untangle the “competing and contradictory” forms of knowledge ( Simpson, 2013 ) that forge social-ecological complexities, especially during and after the process. Ideally, research should be undertaken before the (visible) triggering event(s), but this usually happens by accident (e.g. Simpson, 2013 ).

Further to its significance in theory and practice, it is important to underline that the SI is interdisciplinary by nature, and draws on a range of anthropologists, urban planners, sociologists, psychologists, disaster scholars, geographers and philosophers that along these years have worked on unpacking multiple issues in L’Aquila and nearby areas. All the papers have developed an original perspective to approach, interpret and present the current situation in L’Aquila, making an attempt to link this situation to what occurred in the past 10 years and also making efforts to understand which the future can be.

David E. Alexander proposes a critical examination of the aftermath in L’Aquila, by identifying and explaining the most important characteristics of the recovery and reconstruction process with an integrated perspective. He analysed the vulnerabilities and exposure factors – including root causes and past and present unsafe conditions – that turned a relatively moderate seismic event into a long-term disaster. In terms of lessons learned, he clearly shows how the political context can have bad, long term, irrational social, economic, urban consequences – unique examples are the CASE projects, temporary settlements became permanent so permanently slowing a planned reconstruction, and the nature of legal proceedings following the earthquake. His considerations are then intertwined to common patterns of risk and disaster management in Italy.

Angelo Jonas Imperiale and Frank Vanclay provide an original reflection on the L’Aquila trial of scientists from a DRR perspective. Through a document analysis of trial materials and related commentaries, they argue that disaster governance in L’Aquila was not aligned to international DRR guidelines, such as the Hyogo Framework for Action and the replacing Sendai Framework for DRR. In addition, local communities and knowledges were excluded from the recovery process, so amplifying local vulnerabilities and risks.

Gianmaria Valent reflects on the concept of violence as resulting from the territorial fragmentation of post-disaster L’Aquila. Accordingly, he argues that the recovery in L’Aquila was a violent phenomenon driven by the authoritarian governance regime and supporting legislation during the emergency. In particular, he focusses on the territorial organisation deriving from the authoritarian governance under the Mixed Operative Centres (Centri Operativi Misti) of the Italian Civil Protection and on the CASE Project. In this way, the way the emergency was managed led to long-term socio-urban changes.

Grazia Di Giovanni and Lorenzo Chelleri apply and explore the concept of build back better (BBB) in L’Aquila in a context of depopulation and shrinking economy. In particular, they test whether BBB principles can contribute to driving the recovery pattern towards a sustainable redevelopment. They found that the recovery process revealed several shortcomings in the application of BBB principles, mainly due to a lack of addressing pre-disaster socio-economic stresses related to a shrinking economy.

Giorgios Koukoufikis critically investigates the mismatch between reality and expectations of the “knowledge city” concept, that the local research centre Gran Sasso Science Institute, supported by OECD, adopted as a spatial imaginary for L’Aquila to frame its reconstruction and promote its socio-economic redevelopment. The Author finds that the “knowledge city” concept promoted a vision of the city that was unfeasible due to the lack of specific urban qualities and positive economic trends to attract and maintain highly skilled labour and investments.

Teresa Galanti and Michela Cortini analyse the use of work by female workers in L’Aquila as a recovery factor to the earthquake. By drawing on a series of focus groups with a range of female workers, the authors explore how work offered a possibility to rebuild and reshape women’s personal and professional identity.

Rita Ciccaglione uses a street ethnography technique to investigate the conflictual relationships between neoliberal institutional management and practices and discourses of inhabitants, administrators, experts and commercial operators. In this way, the author is able to highlight the existing differences between institutional resilience strategies and resisting local tactics by people and their dwelling practices.

Finally, Isabella Tomassi and Giuseppe Forino explored the reasons why the community of a self-built ecovillage (EcoVillaggio Autocostruito) spontaneously born after the L’Aquila earthquake in 2009 dissolved in 2014 after deep changes within the community. By using a self-ethnography method, the authors found that community-building goals (such as self-construction, sustainability, mutuality and reciprocity relationships) were replaced by an increasingly centralised decision-making process, and in individual and community conflicts and contrasts.

We warmly thank all the authors who contributed to this special issue for their constructive and mutual knowledge exchange. We extend our thanks to all the anonymous reviewers who gave their availability to provide timely and constructive comments and to ensure an effective peer-review process for increasing the quality of all the papers. In addition, the issue would have never been possible without the guidance of JC Gaillard and Emmanuel Luna, Editors of Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal , and we thank them for their support throughout these two years. We also thank the Emerald Publishing staff, who have been key in providing their kind assistance along with all the editorial steps.

We hope that the issue as a whole, and every single paper of it, can represent a milestone towards a better understanding of the L’Aquila earthquake and the post-disaster recovery praxis in Italy. We also hope further research, not limited to Italy, will build upon the contents presented here.

See also Bristol (2010) , who defined a “second tsunami” the land grabbing after the tsunami (2004) in the Indian Ocean.

See also previous works (e.g. Saitta, 2013 ).

Alexander , D. ( 2013 ), “ An evaluation of medium-term recovery processes after the 6 April 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, Central Italy ”, Environmental Hazards , Vol. 12 No. 1 , pp. 60 - 73 .

Alexander , D.E. ( 2010 ), “ The L’Aquila earthquake of 6 April 2009 and Italian Government policy on disaster response ”, Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research , Vol. 2 No. 4 , pp. 325 - 342 .

Barrios , R.E. ( 2011 ), “ ‘If you did not grow up here, you cannot appreciate living here’: neoliberalism, space-time, and AFFECT in Post-Katrina recovery planning ”, Human Organization , Vol. 70 No. 2 , pp. 118 - 127 .

Barrios , R.E. ( 2017 ), Governing Affect: Neoliberalism and Disaster Reconstruction , University of Nebraska Press .

Benadusi , M. ( 2015 ), “ Antropologia dei disastri. Ricerca, attivismo, applicazione. Un’introduzione ”, Antropologia Pubblica , Vol. 1 No. 1 , pp. 33 - 60 .

Bock , J.J. ( 2017 ), “ The second earthquake: how the Italian state generated hope and uncertainty in post-disaster L’Aquila ”, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute , Vol. 23 No. 1 , pp. 61 - 80 .

Bonati , S. , Forino , G. and Valent , G. ( 2019 ), “ Patterns of structural violence recovering after four major earthquakes in Italy (2009-2019) ”, presentation at i-Rec2019, Gainesville, FL, available at: www.researchgate.net/publication/334164548_Patterns_of_structural_violence_recovering_after_four_major_earthquakes_in_Italy_2009-2019

Bristol , G. ( 2010 ), “ Surviving the second tsunami: land rights in the face of buffer zones, land grabs and development ”, in Lizarralde , G. , Johnson , C. and Davidson , C. (Eds), Rebuilding After Disasters: From Emergency to Sustainability , Routledge , London , pp. 133 - 148 .

Carnelli , F. ( 2012 ), “ Istantanee etnografiche post-sismiche da Paganica ”, in Calandra , L.M. (Ed.), Territorio e democrazia. Un laboratorio di geografia sociale nel doposisma aquilano , L’Una Editrice , L’Aquila , pp. 139 - 164 .

Carnelli , F. , Forino , G. and Zizzari , S. ( 2016 ), “ L’Aquila 2009-2016: the earthquake in the Italian social sciences ”, Sociologia Urbana E Rurale , Vol. 111 No. 2016 , pp. 111 - 114 .

Emidio Di Treviri ( 2018 ), Sul fronte del sisma: un’inchiesta militante sul post-terremoto dell’Appennino centrale, 2016-2017 , DeriveApprodi , Roma .

Farinella , D. and Saitta , P. ( 2019 ), The Endless Reconstruction and Modern Disasters: The Management of Urban Space through an Earthquake – Messina, 1908-2018 , Palgrave .

Forino , G. , Carnelli , F. , Ventura , S. and Tomassi , I. ( 2019 ), “ Il decennale del terremoto dell’Aquila: la politica dell’autocostruzione. Sei domande a Isabella Tomassi, filosofa aquilana ”, Lavoro Culturale, available at: www.lavoroculturale.org/il-decennale-del-terremoto-dellaquila-la-politica-dellautocostruzione/ (accessed 3 May 2019 ).

Forino , G. , Carnelli , F. , Ventura , S. and Valent , G.M. ( 2019 ), “ Il decennale del terremoto dell’Aquila: una violenta riconfigurazione territoriale ”, Lavoro Culturale, available at: www.lavoroculturale.org/il-decennale-del-terremoto-dellaquila-una-violenta-riconfigurazione-territoriale/ (accessed 10 May 2019 ).

Gaillard , J.C. ( 2019 ), “ Power, prestige & forgotten values: a disaster studies manifesto ”, Ipetitions, available at: www.ipetitions.com/petition/power-prestige-forgotten-values-a-disaster (accessed 8 July 2019 ).

Guidoboni , E. and Valensise , G. ( 2011 ), Il peso economico e sociale dei disastri sismici in Italia negli ultimi 150 anni , Bononia University Press .

Kelman , I. ( 2019 ), “ Axioms and actions for preventing disasters ”, Progress in Disaster Science , Vol. 2 , pp. 1 - 3 .

Oliver-Smith , A. , Alcántara-Ayala , I. , Burton , I. and Lavell , A.M. ( 2016 ), “ Forensic Investigations of Disasters (FORIN): a conceptual framework and guide to research ”, IRDR FORIN Publication No. 2, Integrated Research on Disaster Risk, Beijing .

Pelling , M. and Dill , K. ( 2010 ), “ Disaster politics: tipping points for change in the adaptation of sociopolitical regimes ”, Progress in Human Geography , Vol. 34 No. 1 , pp. 21 - 37 .

Pitzalis , S. ( 2015 ), “ Positioning as a method: the earthquake in Emilia Romagna and the forms of ‘exilience’ ”, Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo , Vol. 17 No. 1 , pp. 29 - 40 .

Saitta , P. ( 2013 ), Quota zero. Messina dopo il terremoto: la ricostruzione infinita , Donzelli , Roma .

Simpson , E. ( 2013 ), The Political Biography of an Earthquake: Aftermath and Amnesia in Gujarat, India , Hurst .

Valent , G.M. ( 2018 ), “ Disaster governance and democracy: meta-legal Praxis in L’Aquila (Italy) ”, in Forino , G. , Bonati , S. and Calandra , L.M. (Eds), Governance of Risk, Hazards and Disasters , Routledge , pp. 107 - 124 .

Ventura , S. ( 2010 ), “ Trent’anni di terremoti italiani. Un ‘analisi comparata sulla gestione delle emergenze ”, in Osservatorio sul Doposisma (Ed.), Le Macerie Invisibili: Rapporto 2010 , pp. 19 - 86 .

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• 06 May 2022

Revisiting the foreshocks of the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake

• Ginevra Chelli

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Workers check the damages at the church of San Bernardino, in L'Aquila, after the earthquake that hit the city in April 2009. Credit: Anatoli Zhdanov/UPI Photo/Alamy.

Seismologists debate whether it’s possible to recognize when small earthquakes are really foreshocks preceding a stronger event. Now a team from Italy and Germany has re-analysed the seismic activity that preceded the magnitude-6.1 earthquake that hit L’Aquila on 6 April 2009, killing more than 300 people, to check whether the amplitude and energy of small foreshocks showed different patterns from the normal background seismicity that occurs all year.

Their conclusion does not suggest that the April 2009 event could have been predicted, but it identifies a new parameter that could help study seismic sequences and identify potential that a large earthquake is imminent.

“Our biggest problem is that we will never be able to be on the source when an earthquake strikes”, says lead author, Matteo Picozzi, from the University of Naples. But in recent years, sophisticated networks have been developed that improve scientists’ ability to observe phenomena in the Earth's crust by accessing large volumes of data at the European level. “For the L’Aquila sequence we had the advantage of looking at a very big dataset, unlike previous studies, and we knew in advance what was the seismicity background and what were the foreshocks,” he says.

Using free data from RAMONES , an online platform that extracts, analyses and stores data on earthquakes in Central Italy, Picozzi and his colleagues studied 1 thousands of small earthquakes (with magnitude from 1.8 to 3.5) that happened in the L’Aquila area between January 2005 and December 2009, both leading up to and immediately after the main shock. They focussed in particular on two parameters: the seismic moment, that is essentially a measure of an earthquake’s size, and the radiated energy, that measures the dynamic and friction properties of the rupture. They introduced a parameter of their own design, called Energy Index (EI), that measures the relationship between seismic moment and radiated energy, and how it changes over time. They found that for the week before the 6 April 2009 earthquake the measure of EI deviates significantly from the background seismicity, signalling the onset of the activation phase of the main shock.

The authors suggest that in the future EI may be combined with other parameters for a nearly real-time monitoring, to intercept the preparatory phases of earthquakes and improve hazard estimates.

“Several authors have investigated the spatial and temporal patterns of the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake in central Italy, but the study of Picozzi and colleagues has examined the seismological features of a well-defined foreshock sequence prior to the magnitude- 6.1 earthquake in a novel manner”, says Zoe Mildon, an expert on earthquake dynamics at the University of Plymouth. “For EI to be considered as a forecasting method for large earthquakes, it would be essential to repeat this study for earthquake swarms or clusters of microseismicity that do not lead to mainshocks, and for mainshocks that do not have such a clearly defined foreshock sequence”, she adds. “A better understanding of the possible underlying physical mechanisms of these seismological observations would help clarify the causal link between foreshocks and mainshocks.”

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d43978-022-00057-6

Picozzi, M., Spallarossa, D., Iaccarino, A.G. & Bindi, D. Geophys. Res. Lett. e2021GL097382 (2022).

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Historic Cities in the Face of Disasters pp 281–300 Cite as

Beyond the Damage, the Reconstruction of L’Aquila

• Simona Bravaglieri 24 ,
• Elia Zenoni 24 &
• Silvia Furioni 24  
• First Online: 14 September 2021

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Part of the book series: The Urban Book Series ((UBS))

Twelve years after the earthquake hit L’Aquila, it is time to evaluate its reconstruction from a qualitative point of view. The case of L’Aquila demonstrates how the persistence of the physical sense of a place, the numerous episodes of historical–artistic interest and the quality of the built heritage characterise the historic centre as an irreproducible identity nucleus, on which to base the material and immaterial reconstruction. Particularly, nowadays this identity is compromised by interventions supported by anachronistic hopes of “recovery of the ancient splendour”, which reveal uncertain cultural assumptions and a misunderstood continuity with the past. With these premises, the research aims to investigate how the actors involved in the reconstruction of L’Aquila have chosen to shape the historic centre as if the earthquake had never happened. From the analysis of 13 case studies, a selective memory approach has emerged that aims to remove the painful recollection of the catastrophe as an ordinary attitude in a post-disastrous phase. This approach is of reluctance to the architectural project as a tool of reinterpretation and renewal of the historic architecture, while it deals with the seismic vulnerability only through an engineering-oriented approach. A selected past is displayed while liquidating the value of the architectural addition, thus generating a mere copy of a presumed original city. The plethora of palimpsests is therefore lost—including the earthquake’s trace—as a result of the human’s secular inability to accept sudden changes. In L’Aquila, this emerges through the reconstructed monuments managed by the public institutions that have embraced this effortless procedure as a tool to prove their efficiency. On the other hand, one could wonder whether an “architectural absence” would be more meaningful or at least more reversible.

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To mention a few: “a splendid city which rises upon the fifth post-seismic reconstruction of its history” (Antonini O. Mons. 2019 ); “L’Aquila ‘city of art’ […] is the activation and management of a network system of places and cultural assets to be implemented on an experimental basis, thus starting the implementation of a common strategy of cultural enhancement aimed at transforming the city into a centre of excellence of culture and art.” (Avellani 2019 ); “the ancient city emerged from the excavations of the yards […] precious frescos and decorations are visible again […] while the construction works continue to offer exciting archaeological discoveries” ( L’Aquila 2009–2019 ).

Interestingly, the Italian Cultural Heritage and Landscape Code (Codice dei Beni Culturali e del Paesaggio 2004 ) omits the ambiguous and debated word “authenticity”. According to art. 29, restoration is a “set of operations aimed at the material integrity” of the artefact and not at the formal one. Moreover, there is no mention of “material”, as it prefigures an idea of preservation bounded to the physical feature of the artefact, rather than the aestheticising vision which has always been favourite (Capurro 2017 ).

The reconstruction à l’identique suggests a reductive simplification “summed up in the motto kalòs kai agathòs” that identifies a passive role of communities which due to information asymmetry—and here the expert’s task comes into play—express the need to rediscover the system of values linked to the urban landscape in ‘as it was, where it was’” (Moioli 2019 , p. 77).

Mainly around the temporary-born auditorium, by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, built under the architect’s desire to contribute to the reconstruction of the city and avoid the removal of citizens from its historic centre.

The assignment preceded the Decree n.125/2015, which required religious buildings also to be included in the process of assigning works of public buildings and therefore to determine the assignment of the works by public procurement under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (MiBACT). The category excludes those buildings’ part of a private aggregate (as it would have been for the basilica of San Giuseppe Artigiano).

“Superfetazione”, Italian term meaning a part added to a building after its completion and such as to spoil the aesthetic appearance of the building itself or even the surrounding environment. The authors refer to Dezzi Bardeschi, according to whom the term is to be avoided as evokes the implicit invitation to the removal/abolition of that undesirable intrusion (Dezzi Bardeschi Superfetazione 2017c ).

The Curia attempted to manage the assignment of the works under private intervention procedures, receiving a proposal estimated €35 million. However, while pending the granting of funds, the proposal was questioned by the Decree n.125/2015 (refer to note 5). Afterwards, a state attorney allowed a derogation for those cases where a project had been drawn up before 2015.

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Bravaglieri, S., Zenoni, E., Furioni, S. (2021). Beyond the Damage, the Reconstruction of L’Aquila. In: Arefian, F.F., Ryser, J., Hopkins, A., Mackee, J. (eds) Historic Cities in the Face of Disasters. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77356-4_16

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• Published: 23 March 2020

Lessons from April 6, 2009 L’Aquila earthquake to enhance microzoning studies in near-field urban areas

• Giovanna Vessia 1 ,
• Mario Luigi Rainone 1 ,
• Angelo De Santis 2 &
• Giuliano D’Elia 1  

Geoenvironmental Disasters volume  7 , Article number:  11 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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This study focuses on two weak points of the present procedure to carry out microzoning study in near-field areas: (1) the Ground Motion Prediction Equations (GMPEs), commonly used in the reference seismic hazard (RSH) assessment; (2) the ambient noise measurements to define the natural frequency of the near surface soils and the bedrock depth. The limitations of these approaches will be discussed throughout the paper based on the worldwide and Italian experiences performed after the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake and then confirmed by the most recent 2012 Emilia Romagna earthquake and the 2016–17 Central Italy seismic sequence. The critical issues faced are (A) the high variability of peak ground acceleration (PGA) values within the first 20–30 km far from the source which are not robustly interpolated by the GMPEs, (B) at the level 1 microzoning activity, the soil seismic response under strong motion shaking is characterized by microtremors’ horizontal to vertical spectral ratios (HVSR) according to Nakamura’s method. This latter technique is commonly applied not being fully compliant with the rules fixed by European scientists in 2004, after a 3-year project named Site EffectS assessment using AMbient Excitations (SESAME). Hereinafter, some “best practices” from recent Italian and International experiences of seismic hazard estimation and microzonation studies are reported in order to put forward two proposals: (a) to formulate site-specific GMPEs in near-field areas in terms of PGA and (b) to record microtremor measurements following accurately the SESAME advice in order to get robust and repeatable HVSR values and to limit their use to those geological contests that are actually horizontally layered.

Introduction

On April 6, 2009, at 1:32 a.m. (local time) an M w 6.3 earthquake with shallow hypocentral depth (8.3 km) hit the city of L’Aquila and several municipalities within the Aterno Valley. This earthquake can be considered one of the most mournful seismic event in Italy since 1980 although its magnitude was moderately-high: 308 fatalities and 60.000 people displaced (data source http://www.protezionecivile.it ) and estimated damages for 1894 M€ (data source http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov ). These numbers showed how dangerous can be an unexpected seismic event in urbanized territories where no preventive actions have been addressed to reduce seismic risk. Hence, meanwhile, some actions were implementing in the post-earthquake time such as updating the reference Italian hazard map (by the Decree OPCM n. 3519 on 28 April 2006) and drawing microzoning maps to be used in the reconstruction stage, two major earthquakes struck the Emilia Romagna Region (in the Northern part of Italy), causing 27 deaths and widespread damage. The first, with M w 6.1, occurred on 20 May at 04:03 local time (02:03 UTC) and was located at about 36 km north of the city of Bologna. Then, a second major earthquake (M w 5.9) occurred on 29 May 2012, in the same area, causing widespread damage, particularly to buildings already weakened by the 20 May earthquake. Later on, the 2016–17 Central Italy Earthquake Sequence occurred, consisting of several moderately-high magnitude earthquakes between M w 5.5 and M w 6.5, from Aug 24, 2016, to Jan 18, 2017, each centered in a different but close location and with its own sequences of aftershocks, spanning several months. The seismic sequence killed about 300 people and injured the other 396. Worldwide, several other strong earthquakes (eg. 1998 Northridge earthquake, 2004 Parkfield earthquake, 2010 Canterbury and 2011 and 2017 Christchurch earthquakes, 2018 Sulawesi earthquake) produced devastating effects in the same time span. All these events show the need to carry out efficient microzoning studies to plan vulnerability reductions of urban structures and promoting the resilience of the human communities in seismic territories. After the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake, the microzoning studies have been introduced in Italy by law and the Guidelines for Seismic Microzonation (ICMS 2008 ) have been issued to accomplish these studies according to the most updated international scientific findings. These guidelines provide the local administrators with an efficient tool for seismic microzoning study to predicting the subsoil behavior under seismic shaking. Unfortunately, the ICMS does not give special recommendations for urbanized near field areas (NFAs). The microzoning activity concerning urbanized territories as suggest by ICMS ( 2008 ) is made up of four steps:

Estimating the reference seismic hazard to provide the input peak horizontal ground acceleration (PGA) at each point on the national territory and the normalized response spectrum at each site.

Dynamic characterization of soil deposits overlaying the seismic bedrock at each urban center in order to draw the microzoning maps (MM) at three main knowledge levels.

The Level 1 MM consists of geo-lithological maps of the surficial deposits that show typical successions and the amplified frequency map drawn through the measurements of microtremors elaborated by horizontal to vertical spectral ratio HVSR Nakamura’s technique. Nakamura’s method ( 1989 ), the horizontal to vertical noise components are calculated to derive the natural frequency of surficial soft deposits and their thickness.

The Level 2/3 MM consists of drawing maps after performing the numerical analyses of (a) seismic local amplification factors in terms of acceleration FA and velocity FV; (b) liquefaction potential LP and (c) permanent displacements due to seismically induced slope instability.

After 10 years of training the ICMS and the related methods, it is now the time to start analyzing some arisen weak points. Starting from the large data acquired worldwide on recent strong motion earthquakes, the experiences developed in seismic hazard assessment, and the site-specific seismic response characterization carried out by the writing authors after the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake, the aforementioned weak points (related to some aspects of the steps 1 and 3) are hereinafter discussed and some proposals are made to improve the efficiency of the microzoning studies especially in NFAs.

In this paper, after a brief background section on the procedures to accomplish the reference seismic hazard assessment (background section), the methods to calculate the Ground Motion Prediction Equations (GMPEs) and the HVSR (Nakamura’s method) are briefly recalled in section 2. Then in section 3, the results from observations of recorded peak ground acceleration (PGA) and pseudo-spectral acceleration (PSA) values within the NFAs from the L’Aquila earthquake and other worldwide strong earthquakes have been discussed. In addition, some applications of Nakamura’s procedure to characterize the natural frequency of the sites throughout the Aterno Valley have been discussed. Finally, in the conclusion section, some relevant points drawn from the discussed microzoning experiences have been highlighted to improve the efficiency of the microzonation studies in urban centers especially located in NFAs.

Background on seismic hazard assessment

Several theoretical and experimental studies performed worldwide in the last 50 years (see Kramer 1996 and the reference herein), highlighted that seismic shaking intensity is due to the magnitude of the earthquake generated at the source, to the travel paths of the seismic waves from the source to the buried or outcropping bedrock (that is called reference seismic hazard RSH) and the additional phenomena of local amplification or de-amplification take place where soil deposits overlay the rocky bedrock, named local seismic response LSR (Paolucci 2002 ; Vessia and Venisti 2011 ; Vessia et al. 2011 ; Vessia and Russo 2013 ; Vessia et al. 2013 , 2017 ; Boncio et al. 2018 , among others). The RSH maps drawn worldwide on national territories do not take into account the results of LSR studies.

The pioneering work by Signanini et al. ( 1983 ) after the 1979 Friuli earthquake confirmed the observations on the ground: local seismic effects could enlarge the referenced hazard at a site by 2–3 times in terms of MCS scale Intensity but also in PGA values owing to the local morphological and stratigraphic settings. Such RSL is particularly evident in near field areas, from then on named NFAs. The NFAs have been defined among others by Boore ( 2014a ) as the Fault Damage Zones. These areas cannot be uniquely identified depending on the source rupture mechanisms, the surficial soil deposits and the multiple calculation methods used for measuring the distance between the seismic stations and the source. Especially in these areas, about the first 30 km aside the source, spot-like amplifications are the common amplification pattern captured through the Maximum Intensity Felt maps. These maps estimate the differentiated damages suffered by buildings and urban structures by means of the Macroseismic Intensity scale (e.g. Mercalli-Cancani-Sieberg MCS scale, European Macroseismic scale EMS, Modified Mercalli Intensity MMI scale). One of the Maximum Intensity Felt maps on the Italian territory was drawn by Boschi et al. ( 1995 ). They took into account the seismic events that occurred from 1 to 1992 AD with a minimum intensity felt of VI MCS. This latter value is the one commonly used to highlight those areas where seismic events caused relevant damages to dwellings and infrastructures, ranging from severe damages to collapse. Boschi et al. ( 1995 ) map is reported in Fig.  1 : it showed IX-X MCS at L’Aquila district based on historical earthquakes that are in agreement with the seismic intensity map drawn by Galli and Camassi ( 2009 ) after the mainshock of 2009 L’Aquila earthquake. This map is also in very good agreement with other recent earthquakes such as the 2012 Emilia Romagna and 2016–17 Central Italy earthquakes (Fig. 1 ). Moreover, Boschi et al. ( 1995 ), Midorikawa ( 2002 ) and more recently, Paolini et al. ( 2012 ) proposed a direct use of the Maximum Felt Intensity maps to highlight those areas where the reference seismic hazard is largely increased by the local amplificated responses of soil deposits, that is the NFAs.

Italian Maximum Intensity felt map (After Boschi et al. 1995 , modified) with the areas of two recent Italian earthquake sequences considered in the present work

The most used method to perform the reference seismic hazard assessment has been conceived in the late ‘60s. It is Cornell’s method ( 1968 ) that was implemented into a numerical code by Mc Guire ( 1978 ). Cornell ( 1968 ) introduced the Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment (PSHA) method to carry out the reference seismic hazard at a site considering the contribution of the seismic source and the travel path of the seismic waves by considering the uncertainties related to these estimations. This method consists of four steps (Kramer 1996 ), as illustrated in Fig.  2 :

STEP 1. To identify the seismogenic sources as single faults and faulting regions in terms of magnitude amplitude generated at different time spans. The probabilistic approach to such a characterization needs to know the rate of the earthquake at different magnitudes at the site and the spatial distribution of the fault segment or the source volume that can be activated.

STEP 2_1. To calculate the seismic rate in a region the Gutenberg-Richter law is used, where a and b coefficients are drawn by interpolating numerous data from a database of seismic events (instrumental and non-instrumental) available for a limited number of source areas and affected by the lack of completeness distortions. The earthquake occurrence probability is estimated by means of a Poisson distribution over time that is independent of the time span of the last strong seismic event.

STEP 2_2. To calculate the spatial distribution of the seismic events alongside a fault zone is a character difficult to get known and the spatial distribution of earthquake sources within a seismogenic area is commonly assumed uniformly distributed.

STEP 3. To define the ground motion prediction equations GMPEs that enable to predict, at different magnitude ranges, the decrease with the distance from the seismic source of the strong motion parameter assumed to be representative of the earthquake at a site.

STEP 4. To calculate the probability of exceedance of a target shaking value of the considered ground motion parameter, i.e. PGA, in a time span at a chosen site, due to the contribution of different seismogenic sources.

Cornell’s probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA) explained in four steps. The blue house represents the site under study

The previous 4 steps attempt to take into account several sources of uncertainties, such as the limited knowledge about the fault activity, the qualitative and documental estimations of the past earthquake effects at the sites, the lack of completeness of the seismic catalogs (meaning that the database of the seismic events is populated by several data related to both low and high magnitude ones) and the dependency among the recorded strong seismic events. In addition, the distortions in Gutenberg-Richter law, defined for different regions worldwide and the uncertainties related to the GMPEs can generate underestimations of the seismic shaking parameters (i.e. PGA) at specific sites where local seismic effects are relevant (Paolucci 2002 ; Vessia and Venisti 2011 ; Vessia and Russo 2013 ; Vessia et al. 2013 ; Yagoub 2015 ; Miyajima et al. 2019 ; Lanzo et al. 2019 ; among others). Logic trees are commonly used to take into account different formulations of GMPEs and several Gutenberg-Richter rates of magnitude occurrence (Kramer 1996 ).

Molina et al. ( 2001 ) pointed out that the PSHA has its strength in the systematic parameterization of seismicity and the way in which also epistemic uncertainties are carried out through the computations into the final results.

Recently, alternative approaches to PSHA calculation have been suggested, such as through extensions of the zonation method (Frankel 1995 ; Frankel et al. 1996 , 2000 ; Perkins 2000 ) where multiple source zones, parameter smoothing and quantification of geology and active faults have been successfully applied. The Frankel et al. ( 1996 ) method applied a Gaussian function to smooth a-values (within Gutenberg-Richter law) from each zone, thereby being a forerunner for the later zonation-free approaches of Woo ( 1996 ). This latter approach tries to amalgamate statistical consistency with the empirical knowledge of the earthquake catalogue (with its fractal character) into the computation of seismic hazard. Furthermore, Jackson and Kagan ( 1999 ) developed a non-parametric method with a continuous rate-density function (computed from earthquake catalogues) used in earthquake forecasting. Nonetheless, all these methods need a function to propagate the strong motion parameter values from the source to the site under study. To this end, the GMPEs are built by interpolating large databases of seismic records (related to specific geographical and tectonic environments worldwide), taking into account the contributions of the earthquake magnitude M and the distance to the seismic source R , according to the following form (Kramer 1996 ):

where Y is the ground motion parameter, commonly the peak ground horizontal acceleration PGA or the spectral acceleration SA at fixed period; S i is related to the source and site: they are the refinement terms due to the enlargement of the seismic databases and the possibility of drawing specific regional GMPEs.

The uncertainty of GMPEs in near field areas

Several examples of GMPEs are provided in literature (Kramer 1996 among others) while a recent throughout review of several possible formulations of GMPEs used in the USA can be found at the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research center PEER website http://peer.berkeley.edu/publications/peer_reports_complete.html . In Italy, the GMPEs are built based on the PGAs drawn from the Italian shape wave database of strong motion events (Faccioli 2012 ; Bindi et al. 2011 , 2014 ; Cauzzi et al. 2014 ). Commonly, the PGA values represent the strong motion parameter used in microzoning studies but the related GMPEs are highly uncertain especially in the first tens of kilometers as shown in Fig.  3 a (Faccioli 2012 ) and Fig.  4 a (Boore 2013 ). According to Boore ( 2013 , 2014a ), fault zone records show significant variability in amplitude and polarization of PGA, SA especially at low periods (as shown in Fig. 4 a) and magnitude saturation beyond M w 6, although the causes of this variability are not easy to be unraveled. The main drawback of the GMPEs is the weakness of their predictivity at a short distance from the seismic source due to two main issues affecting the NFAs worldwide:

a few seismic stations installed;

highly scattered measures of strong motion parameters, especially in terms of accelerations (i.e. PGA, SA, etc) (Fig. 2 , step 3), that do not show any decreasing trend with distance.

a Ground Motion Prediction Equation (GMPE) of PGA versus the minimum source-to-site distance (After Faccioli 2012 , modified): a band of uncertainty (grey) of GMPEs proposed by Faccioli et al. ( 2010 ). b 2008 Boore and Atkinson ground motion prediction equation (BA08 GMPE) of PGA based on data collected in United States for Magnitude 7.3 M w , strike-slip fault type and V S30 equal to 255 m/s: solid line is the mean equation; dashed lines represent the confidence interval at one standard deviation (After Boore 2013 , modified)

a Measures of PSA during the Parkfield earthquake 2004 (6 M w ) are reported near the active fault at the measure seismic stations (After Boore 2014b , modified); b Onna sector of Aterno River Valley: the records are for an aftershock of 3.2 Ml

The PGA spatial uncertainties have been observed after several recent strong earthquakes, such as 2009 L’Aquila earthquake (Lanzo et al. 2010 ; Bergamaschi et al. 2011 ; Di Giulio et al. 2011 ), 2011 Christchurch and 2010 Darfield earthquakes in New Zealand (Bradley and Cubrinovski 2011 ) (Fig.  5 ), 2012 Emilia Romagna earthquake in Italy, 1994 Northridge earthquake in USA (Boore 2004 ) and 2013 Fivizzano earthquake (Fig. 5 ). In the case of the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake (Fig. 4 b), the areal distribution of PGAs around the source seems to be highly random although they show that the most dramatic increase occurs where thick soft sediments are met over rigid bedrocks or where bedrock basin shapes can be recognized. This latter traps the seismic waves and caused longer duration accelerograms with increased amplitudes at short and moderate periods (lower than 2 s) (Rainone et al. 2013 ).

Horizontal and vertical PGA values recorded within the first 20 km epicenter distance during 1) 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquake (6.3 M w ) (square) and 2) 21 June 2013 Fivizzano earthquake (5.1 M w ) (triangle)

The GMPEs based on PGAs tend to saturate for large earthquakes as the distance from the fault rupture to the observation point decreases. Boore ( 2014b ) showed that the PGA parameter is a poor measure of the ground-motion intensity due to its non-unique correspondence to the frequency and acceleration content of the shaking waves (Fig. 4 ), especially at high frequencies. Furthermore, Bradley and Cubrinovski ( 2011 ) and Boore ( 2004 ) stated that the influence on the amplitude and shape response by local surface geology and geometrical conditions is noted to be much more relevant than the forward directivity and the source-site path on spectral accelerations in near field areas and for periods shorter than 3 s.

Thus, the GMPEs of PGAs within the NFAs are highly uncertain and cumbersome to be predicted even when fitted on single seismic events as shown in Fig. 5 (Bradley and Cubrinovski 2011 ; Faccioli 2012 ; Boore 2014b ). Faccioli ( 2012 ) evidenced 100% of the coefficient of variation about the mean trend of PGA GMPE versus source-to-site distance (Fig. 3 a). This GMPE was built based on the ITACA 2010 database (Luzi et al. 2008 , http://itaca.mi.ingv.it/ItacaNet_30/#/home ) that collects Italian strong motion shape waves. It is worth noticing that within the first tens of kilometers from the source, these data indicate that the GMPEs are not accurate in predicting the PGA values. To avoid the pitfalls in GMPEs based on peak parameters, integral ground motion parameters have been proposed in the literature (Kempton and Stewart 2006 ; Abrahamson and Silva 2008 ; Campbell and Bozorgnia 2012 ), such as Arias intensity (AI) and cumulative absolute velocity (CAV). In addition, Hollenback et al. ( 2015 ) and Stewart et al. ( 2015 ) formulated new generation GMPEs based on median ground-motion models as part of the Next Generation Attenuation for Central and Eastern North America project. They provided a set of adjustments to median GMPEs that are necessary to incorporate the source depth effects and the rupture distances in the range from 0 to 1500 Km. Moreover, the preceding authors suggest a distinct expression for the GMPE at short-distance to the source (by 10 km), that is:

where R RUP is the rupture distance, that is the closest distance to the earthquake rupture plane (km); c 1 and c 2 are the regression coefficients and h is a “fictitious depth” used for ground-motion saturation at close distances.

Ambient noise measures elaborated by means of the Nakamura horizontal to vertical ratio HVSR

In 1989 Nakamura proposed to use the ambient noise measurements to derive a seismic property of a site, that is the frequency range of amplification, through the spectral ratio of horizontal H and vertical V ambient vibration (microtremors) components of the recorded signals. If the site does not amplify, the ratio H/V is equal to 1. The Nakamura method shows the advantage to solve the troublesome issue to find out a reference site. In fact, it considers the vertical component as the one that is not modified by the site where horizontal subsoil layers are set and SH seismic waves represent the ambient noise signal content in a quite site (far from urban or industrial areas). This latter is the reference signal whereas the horizontal component is the only one that can be affected by the amplifying properties of the soils. As a matter of fact, Nakamura assumed that:

locally random distributed sources of microtremors generate not directional signals almost made up of shear horizontal or Rayleigh waves;

the microtremors are confined in the surficial layers because the subsoil is made up of soft layered sediments overlaying a rigid seismic bedrock.

A relevant implication of the Nakamura method is that the peaks of the ratio H/V are related to the presence of high acoustic impedance contrast at the depth h that can be derived by the following expression:

where V S is the mean value of the measured shear wave velocity profile and f o is the amplified frequency measured by means of the noise measurement.

The fundamental rules to perform a correct ambient noise recording was provided by the European research project named SESAME (Bard and the WG 2004 ) that analyzed the possible drawbacks of the simple model introduced by the Nakamura method and issued guidelines that offer important recommendations regarding the places where the method can be successfully used in urbanized areas. The given recommendations are based on a rather strict set of criteria, that are essentially composed of (1) experimental conditions and (2) criteria for gaining reliable results (Table 1 ).

As can be seen from Table 1 , the recommendations are focused on the weather conditions that influence the quality of the noise measurements and they highlight the need to record at distance from structures, trees, slopes because all these items affect the records. Unfortunately, it is not possible to quantify the minimum distance from the structure where the influence is negligible, as this distance depends on too many external factors (structure type, wind strength, soil type, etc.). Furthermore, related to the measurement spacing, SESAME guidelines suggest to never use a single measurement point to derive f 0 value, make at least three measurement points. This latter advice is often disregarded.

An interesting alternative way to apply the HVSR method is to investigate the “heavy tails” of its statistical distribution that is like that of a critical system (Signanini and De Santis 2012 ). This is likely indicative of the strong non-linear properties of rocks forming the uppermost crust resulting in a power-law trend.

However, the Nakamura technique has been introduced in microzoning studies at Level 1 in Italy (ICMS 2008 ) to draw the natural frequency map of urban sites but limitations to suitable sites have not been prescribed. Although the Nakamura method seems to be simple, lost cost and short time consuming, the suitable sites where it can be applied are few, especially in urban centers. This type of indirect investigation method is not applicable in complex geological contexts (e.g. buried inclined fold settings) and is not easily handled for the difficulties in reproducing the same measurements under variable site conditions and noise sources and acquisitions performed by different operators even at the same site.

Rainone et al. ( 2018 ) undertook a thorough study on the effectiveness of HVSR in predicting amplification frequencies at two Italian urban areas characterized by different subsoil setting and noise distribution. Results from this study show that HVSR works well only where horizontally layered sediments overlay a rigid bedrock: these conditions are the most relevant and the most influential on the predictivity of the actual f o measured values.

Results and discussion

A new proposal for gmpes in near field areas.

Recently, a study to formulate ad hoc GMPEs for PGAs within NFAs of the Central Italy Apennine sector has been performed. Only horizontal PGA values measured from seismic stations set on A and A* soil category (V s  ≥ 800 m/s), generated by seismic events with M w ranging between 5.0 and 6.5 and normal fault mechanism, have been extracted from ITACA shape wave database (Luzi et al. 2008 ). The selected events cover the period from 1997 to 2017 and consider 25 seismic events from three strong seismic sequences generated by normal faults: the 1997 Umbria-Marche, 2009 L’Aquila, 2016–2017 Central Italy. The studied source area is a quadrant whose edges’ coordinates are (43.5°, 12.3°) and (42.2°, 13.6°) in decimal degrees. The PGA measures within the first 35 km from the seismic source have been taken into account. The hypocentral distance has been used to define the source to site distance. Two GMPEs within the first 35 km have been drawn for two ranges of moment magnitude: 5 ≤ M w1  < 5.5 and 5.5 ≤ M w2  ≤ 6.5. These ranges represent the injurious magnitudes of the Italian moderately-high magnitude earthquakes (Fig.  6 ). As can be noted from Fig. 6 the PGA values seem not to be highly different in the two magnitude ranges and they do not show a clear trend with the hypocentral distance. Thus, these two datasets have been kept distinct and a box and whisker plot has been used to calculate their medians, quartiles, and interquartile distance.

Datasets of PGA values recorded at NFAs in the Central Italy Apennine Sector from 1997 to 2017 divided into two ranges of M w : a 5 ≤ M w1  < 5.5; b 5.5 ≤ M w2  ≤ 6.5

Figure  7 a, b show the two datasets with a different number of bins of hypocentral distance: it is due to the circumstance that for higher magnitudes (Fig.  7 b) the seismic stations within the first 10 km are that few that cannot be considered a distinct bin. Thus, through Fig. 7 a, b the outliers are evidenced and eliminated. Then the 95th percentiles of the PGAs within each bin of the two datasets have been calculated. The mean value of the preceding percentiles has been considered as the representative constant value of the first 30 km of the hypocentral distance: 0.27 g for 5 ≤ M w1  < 5.5 and 0.37 g for 5.5 ≤ M w2  ≤ 6.5. It is worthy to be noted that this proposal is related to the PGA values at the rigid ground to be used in microzonation studies at the sites located in the Central Italy Apennine sector within the first 30 km hypocentral distance and in the two ranges of magnitudes of moderately high earthquakes. The disaggregation pairs at each site within NFAs can be determined according to the Ingv study issued at the website: esse1.mi.ingv.it . Then, to select the reference PGA can be used the abovementioned method and the two values found by this study. Further studies must be accomplished to characterize the PGA of different seismic regions within Italian territory. The same proposed approach or several other proposals can be conceived and applied worldwide within the NFAs taking into account that the surficial soil response there is not dependent on the distance from the source but it is much more dependent on the non-linearity of the soil response combined with the complex geological conditions that cannot be easily modelled.

Box and whistler plots of the two datasets of PGA values recorded at NFAs in the Central Italy Apennine Sector from 1997 to 2017 divided into two ranges of M w : a 5 ≤ M w1  < 5.5; b 5.5 ≤ M w1  ≤ 6.5. The bins of hypocentral distance are: a) 1(0–9.95 km), 2(10–19.95 km), 3(20–29.95 km); b) 1(10–19.95 km), 2(20–29.95 km). The void circles are the outliers identified by the box and whistler method

HVSR measurements addressed in the Aterno Valley

The seismic characterization of surface geology by means of microtremors was introduced by ICMS ( 2008 ) and it was then applied in the aftermath of the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake. Many research groups started to record ambient vibrations and process them through Nakamura’s method ignoring, in details, the surface geology of each testing point. At Villa Sant’Angelo and Tussillo sites (falling into the Macroarea 6 of the Aterno Valley named L’Aquila crater), we performed several microtremors acquisitions at one station through two devices: Tromino and DAQLink III. The following acquisition parameters have been used: (1) time windows longer than 30′; (2) the sampling frequency higher than 125 Hz; (3) the sampling time lower than 8 ms. Furthermore, Fast Fourier Transform FFT has been used to calculate the ratio H/V. Finally, the spectral smoothing has been performed by means of the Konno-Ohmachi smoothing window. The HVSR values have been calculated for each sub-windows of 20s, then the mean and the standard deviation of all ratios have been calculated and plotted. Further details on the technical aspects of the acquisitions by both devices can be found in Vessia et al. ( 2016 ).

Figure  8 a shows the HVSR measurements acquired at two neighboring points in Tussillo center, where geological characters were similar, by two research groups: T1 (the writing authors) and M5 (the Italian Department of Civil Protection DPC). These acquisitions have been done by the Tromino equipment. As can be noted, the two plots are different: T1 evidences peaks at 2.5 Hz and 8 Hz; on the contrary, the M5 shows the main peak at 2 Hz and minor peaks at 10-20 Hz, 40 Hz and 55 Hz. In the presence of these peaks, the operator would select the most representative one: of course, this selection is highly subjective although the SESAME rules suggest to take into account the highest peaks, such as 2 Hz in both cases (T1 and M5) and disregard the peaks higher than 20 Hz.

a H/V measurements at two neighbor points at Tussillo center: T1 (this study) and M5 (DPC). b H/V measurements performed by the Tromino at T5 (this study) and at S4 (DPC) under similar ground conditions

On the contrary, Fig.  8 b shows the HVSRs measured at two nearby points on a different type of ground type compared with the previous points: T5 (the writing authors) and S4 (DPC group).

In this latter case, the two plots show an evident peak at 2 Hz although the peak amplitude is double at T5 with respect to S4. This difference could be due to the presence of disregarded Love waves that do not have vertical components contributing to the amplification of the horizontal components.

Figure  9 a, b compare HVSR measured at NE of T5, at Villa Sant’Angelo historical center. In this case, the signals are recorded by two devices used by us: the Tromino and the DAQLink devices. As can be seen, they show similar peaks although no unique peak values can be drawn from each HVSR. In this case, the operator choices can affect the results in terms of the natural frequency of the site. However, the SESAME rule of three acquisitions at 3 different points to assess HVSR could be useful to get to a robust assessment of f o .

Noise measurements at Villa Sant’Angelo center by a the Tromino device; b the DAQLink device

Another weak point in the calculation of the amplified frequency f 0 is the systematic differences in calculated amplified frequencies coming from the noise measurements, that induce very small deformation in soil deposits and f 0 drawn from the weak motion tails of the strong motion signals generated by the strong motion events at the site that cause medium to large deformation levels in the ground. From our experience, the f 0 drawn from noise measurements are rarely confirmed by amplified frequencies from actual records. From the field experience, the amplified frequencies f 0 have been measured through the HVSR function from the noise tracks acquired at the Tussillo site, at the point T1 and the weak motion tails of a seismic event recorded on July 7, 2009, at 10:15 local time at the same site.

Figure  10 shows the HVSR functions. It is easy to notice that the calculated f 0 related to the noise (Fig.  10 a) is shown at 8 Hz whereas and the one related to the weak motion (Fig. 10 b) is calculated at 2 Hz: the peak frequencies do not match and the weak tail, after the strong motion excitation shows a lower amplification frequency due to the non-linear response of the soil compared to the peak related to the noise measures. These results have been confirmed by other comparisons accomplished in several other places within the Aterno Valley (Vessia et al. 2016 ).

HVSR function measured at the T1 site, at Tussillo site (see Fig. 8 ) from: a the noise measurements; b the weak motion tail of a seismic event recorded on 7 July 2009, at 10:15 local time

Finally, from the abovementioned experiences, three issues can be pointed out: (1) Nakamura’s method often provides more than one peak corresponding to different natural frequencies; (2) the peaks are heavily affected by many external factors, especially in urban areas, that are not easy to be disregarded by filtering the measurements; (3) the peaks in HVSR functions are not commonly related to both weak and strong motion amplified frequencies.

Thus, the use of the noise measurements in microzoning activities to derive the bedrock depth should be discouraged especially when the geological conditions of the site are not known, such as the shear wave velocity profile of the soil deposits up to the bedrock depth. In addition, the amplified frequency of the site should be determined through more than one measurement, according to the SESAME rules, in order to check the possible differences induced by the different time of the day and weather conditions at the site. However, the amplified frequency measured at a very low deformation level is modified at medium and large deformations induced during the strong and even weak motion seismic events. Thus the calculation of the f 0 from noise measures can only be used to determine the bedrock depth through Eq. ( 3 ) but the shear wave velocity profile is needed as well as the buried geological conditions to guarantee the applicability of the Nakamura method.

Conclusions

In this paper two weak points in microzoning studies have been discussed starting from the authors’ experience in microzonation in Italy, that is: (a) the lack of predictivity of GMPEs of PGA measurements in NFAs and (b) the ability of noise measurements to capture the amplified frequency at site even in a complex geological conditions. Throughout the paper, some past experiences of microzoning activity by the present authors are discussed and two proposals have neem put forward. On one hand, concerning the GMPEs of PGAs according to the reference seismic hazard assessment performed in Italy, the need for specific GMPE values in NFAs have been highlighted by several scientists. Here, the proposal of using the 95 percentile of the scattered values recorded within the first 30 km from the hypocentral distance has been provided for the Central Italy Apennine Sector. These values have been drawn from the ITACA database limited to seismic events ranging from 5 to 6.5 M w occurred from 1997 to 2017. On the other hand, after a large experience gained in the noise measurements recorded in the Aterno Valey after the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake, it can be concluding that the noise measurements are not inherently repeatable, thus at least two or three measurements, according to the SESAME guidelines (this represents the European standard to perform ambient vibration measurements) must be requested to calculate the f 0 by means of Nakamura’s method. Although noise measurements can provide relevant differences in amplified frequencies according to the operator or the weather conditions, following the SESAME rules guarantee both technical standards to an unregulated geophysical technique that relies on a simple buried geological model of horizontally layered soil deposits. This model, when not applicable, can make the HVSR function from noise measurements totally misleading. Thus, even at level 1 microzoning studies, the use of direct and indirect measures is needed in order to confirm the layered planar setting of the subsurface geo-lithological model and measuring shear wave velocity profiles to enable a robust prediction of the bedrock depth by means of the amplified frequency f 0 estimation.

Finally, when the noise measurements are compared with the weak motion tails of actual seismic events, they show different amplified ranges of frequencies. Accordingly, it must be kept in mind that soil behavior is strain-dependent: this means that their natural frequencies at small strain levels (microtremors) differ from the ones at medium strain level (weak motions) and at high strain level (strong motions). Then, depending on the purpose of the natural frequency measurement, different strain levels will be investigated to do an adequate characterization of the site response under seismic excitation.

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Abbreviations

Arias Intensity

Cumulative Absolute Velocity

Amplification factor in terms of accelerations

Amplification factor in terms of velocities

Ground Motion Prediction Equation

Horizontal to Vertical Spectral Ratio

Mercalli-Cancani-Sieberg Intensity Scale

Microzoning map

Near Field Area

Peak Ground Acceleration

Peak Spectral Acceleration

Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment

Reference Seismic Hazard

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Prof. Patrizio Signanini who gave precious suggestions during the paper preparation and inspired several discussions on the effects of inefficient microzonation studies on people’s daily life quality in near field seismic areas.

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To this study, GV was responsible for the state of the art research (Introduction and Methods section) and the Results section related to 3.1 paragraph; MLR and ADS were responsible for the geophysical campaign and the Results section discussing results; GE acquired some ambient noise records and was responsible for the figures. All the authors contributed together to the writing of the manuscript. The author(s) read and approved the final manuscript.

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Vessia, G., Rainone, M., De Santis, A. et al. Lessons from April 6, 2009 L’Aquila earthquake to enhance microzoning studies in near-field urban areas. Geoenviron Disasters 7 , 11 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40677-020-00147-x

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Received : 11 August 2019

Accepted : 26 February 2020

Published : 23 March 2020

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s40677-020-00147-x

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