International: Embedding analysis of seismic hazard and risk for improved welfare in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

吉尔吉斯斯坦位于中亚，是一个地震多发的国家。地球板块的构造碰撞在这个地区形成了巨大的山脉。这些山脉是由天山山脉北部大断层上的地震形成的。吉尔吉斯斯坦的首都比什凯克位于其中一条主要断层线上，是100万人口的家园。在过去，位于该山脉北部边缘的主要城市，如东部的阿拉木图，在19世纪末的大地震中被摧毁。这种情况发生在它们还是相对较小的城镇时。如果今天类似规模的地震发生在比什凯克的主要城市，其影响将更具破坏性。在较贫穷的国家，城市的迅速扩张意味着大量建筑不够坚固，无法抵御地震。我们希望帮助比什凯克的政府部门，如建设部和紧急情况部，能够更好地评估未来地震袭击城市的潜在影响。为此，我们将向他们提供未来地震中可能死亡人数的估计，有多少建筑物将被破坏或倒塌，以及这样的地震将造成多大的经济损失。我们还将提供我们认为城市受不同类型地震影响最大的地方的地图，因为附近的小地震可能和远处的大地震产生同样大的影响。这将使吉尔吉斯政府各部能够确定城市中哪些关键建筑（如学校和医院）应该加固，以及更好地规划应该在哪里建造新住宅区，还可以执行抗震建筑规范，以确保建筑物建得更好。为了提供这些最新的信息，我们将与比什凯克的地震学研究所合作，该研究所的职责是提供这些地震风险的估计。因此，我们直接与授权向政府提供信息的组织合作，这样我们将确保我们的工作也会产生影响。我们还将培训研究所的工作人员，使他们能够更新这些损失估计，以便在我们不再从事这个项目时，他们有能力继续这项工作。重要的是能够不断更新损失估计和地震风险地图。城市在不断扩大。如果这些城市位于地震易发地区，如吉尔吉斯斯坦首都比什凯克，这种增长就会增加它们面临地震灾害的风险，增加人们面临的风险。通常，俯瞰一座城市的最佳视角是在地势较高的地方，但这个高地是由构造山脉的断层形成的。随着城市人口的增长，比什凯克市正在向南扩张，现在房屋就建在这些断层线上。如果离断层很近，地震发生时震动会增加，因此建筑物倒塌、伤害或死亡的可能性也会增加。除了地震危险的增加，我们还通过绘制断层线和识别过去的地震破裂，在该地区发现了更多的活跃断层。将这些新信息纳入地震危险的估计是很重要的，因为已知过去曾有一些非常大的地震袭击过该地区。因此，我们将把这些最新的科学信息纳入我们对地震危险性的估计中。我们正在与全球地震模型基金会（Global Earthquake Model Foundation）等其他合作伙伴合作，该基金会的宗旨是通过合作、开放和透明，提供可靠的地震灾害和风险评估，为公众服务。他们的开放软件“OpenQuake”使我们能够计算地震风险。

The country of Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia is exposed to the hazards of earthquakes. The tectonic collision of the Earth's plates is creating huge mountains in this region. These mountains are created from earthquakes on large faults along the northern Tien Shan mountain range. Kyrgyzstan's' capital, Bishkek, lies on top of one of these major fault lines and is home to a million people. In the past, major cities that exist along the northern edge of this mountain range, such as Almaty to the east, have been destroyed in large earthquakes at the end of the 19th Century. This occurred when they were relatively small towns. The impact today from similar sized earthquakes would have a much more devastating effect if it were to strike the major city of Bishkek. The rapid expansion of cities in poorer countries has meant that a large number of buildings are not strong enough to be resilient to earthquakes.We want to help the Government ministries in Bishkek, such as the Ministry for Construction and also for Emergency Situations, to be able to better assess the potential impact for earthquakes to strike the city in future. We will do this by providing them with estimates of how many people may die in future earthquakes, how many buildings will be damaged or collapse, and how much such an earthquake will cost financially. We will also provide maps of where we think the city will be most affected by different types of earthquakes, as small nearby earthquakes can have as big an impact as distant large ones. This will enable the Kyrgyz government ministries to target where in the city key buildings, such as schools and hospitals, should be reinforced, as well as to better plan where new housing estates should be built, and also to enforce the seismic building codes to make sure the buildings are built better.In order to provide this latest information, we will be working with the Institute of Seismology in Bishkek, whose responsibility it is to provide these kinds of estimates of seismic risk. We are therefore working directly with the organisation that has the mandate to provide information to the government and by doing so we will ensure that our work will also have an impact. We are also going to train the institute staff to be able to update these estimates of losses so that they have the capacity to continue this work once we are no longer working on this project.It is important to be able to keep updating the estimates of losses and maps of seismic risk. Cities are constantly enlarging. If these cities lie in earthquake prone areas, such as the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, this growth increases their exposure to seismic hazards, increasing the risk that people face. Often some of the best views over a city come from higher ground, but this high ground is created by faults that build mountains. The city of Bishkek is expanding southwards as the urban population grows, and homes are now being built right on top of these fault lines. Being very near to a fault increases the amount of shaking if an earthquake happens, and therefore increases the chances of the building collapsing, injuring or killing the occupants.As well as the increased exposure to earthquake hazards, we are also discovering more active faults in the region through mapping out the fault lines and identifying past earthquake ruptures. It is important to incorporate this new information into the estimates of seismic hazard, as some very large earthquakes are known to have struck the region in the past. Therefore we will include this recent scientific information into our estimates of seismic hazard.We are working with other partners, such as the Global Earthquake Model Foundation, which was created to serve the public good through collaboration, openness and transparency by providing credible assessments of seismic hazard and risk. Their open software "OpenQuake" enables us to do the calculations of seismic risk.