Introduction

The Sugar House Earthquake Loss Estimation Project is based on a cartography class project for GEOG3040 (T. Painter, Fall 2008, University of Utah). Being familiar with HAZUS Advanced Engineering Building Module (AEBM) earthquake analyses through my work with the Disaster Resistant University project at the University of Utah, I chose to do a loss estimation study for my local neighborhood in Salt Lake City, Utah. The loss estimation results are based on a probabilistic magnitude 7.0 event with a recurrence interval of 1500 years.

Map Usage

While content on this website (documentation, perl scripts) are open source, the final map is hosted on a different website and is not open source. Stuart Moffatt takes sole responsibility and retains copyright for the content of the final map. The map has been accepted to the University of Utah Research Posters on the Hill event at the Utah State Capitol building on January 29, 2009. (Thus, the usage of the U logo on the map.) I will be on hand to speak to interested legislators with this version of the map (or one very similar) that will be on display.

Download the Sugar House Earthquake Mitigation Return on Investment Map (PDF, low resolution, 21MB)

(OLD VERSION, PLEASE USE THE ABOVE VERSION) Download the Sugar House Earthquake Loss Estimation map (PDF, 59MB)

File details

The map is a 59MB high-resolution PDF, which may take a minute or two to download depending on your bandwidth. It is 36" x 42" with a landscape orientation. Within Acrobat, use the zoom and page tools to view the map at different levels.

Project Highlights

The unique aspects of this project are four-fold:

• a custom rule to convert County Assessor "Exterior Wall Type" data into FEMA 154-compatible building types (e.g. W1, URM) based on Dr. L. Reaveley's expert knowledge of local building practices.
• a documented work-around to map results from HAZUS-MH MR3 because of a geometry defect in AEBM output
• a set of perl scripts to:
• download parcel data from the Salt Lake County Assessor website
• analyze each parcel data set to implement the exterior-wall-type-to-FEMA-building-type rule
• documentation to combine modified parcel geometry and HAZUS AEBM results to produce a choropleth map to show results

Note: each of these aspects will be documented fully on this project website in December 2008.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to:

• Dr. T. Cova (Department of Geography, University of Utah) who is my faculty advisor and research mentor as the Director of the Center for Natural and Technological Hazards at the University of Utah
• Dr. L. Reaveley (Depart of Civil Engineering, University of Utah) who has also mentored me on the details of seismic building codes and provided the "rule" that facilitated the GIS analysis for this project
• Ms. M. Shaub (Director of Environment Health and Safety, University of Utah and principal investigator of the Disaster Resistant University project) and Mr. P. van der Have (former AVP, Facilities at the University of Utah and project manager of the Disaster Resistant University project), both of whom have inspired me to dig deeper into the field of disaster management.
• Dr. T. Painter (Department of Geography, University of Utah) and T. Edgar (course TA) who taught me the essentials of map-making and provided the framework for this final term assignment.