Resilience Strategy After 2016 Central Italy Earthquake in Historical Centres. Seismic Vulnerability Assessment Method of Traditional Masonry Buildings

The 2016 Central Italy earthquake has produced a depopulation of rural and mountainous area, increasing the desertion of several minor historical centres and scattering of urban communities. This kind of damages had dramatic impacts on possibility of both preservation and restoration of traditional architectures, due to the specificity of the peculiar material used and construction techniques. Moreover, from a social perspective, human settlement faced a progressive loss of identification, which considerably undermined economic and social life leading to an impoverishment. In order to reverse the trend, the aim of the project is to investigate the urban framework of post disaster reconstruction through the definition of vulnerability assessment measures in order to improve the resilience of traditional buildings and create safer urban environments. The starting point of the current research is the impact of 2016 Central Italy earthquake on the historical centre of Caldarola, an Italian village located between Camerino and Macerata, in Marche region. Structural units composing a buildings aggregate have been examined through innovative expeditious method, with the aim of identifying masonry building fragilities by considering its possible collapse mechanisms (I mode in-plane and II mode out-of-plane). This seismic vulnerability assessment result in VGA index (global analytic vulnerability) calculated on 10 SUs (structural units) obtaining a ranking to be compared with each other post-earthquake building’s damage state. In according to the EMS98 scale for masonry structures, was elaborated an ID damage index that can express numerically the severity of the level damage. The analysis results highlight that a high percentage of vulnerability ranking matches with damage ranking, showing a strong link between the development of an empirical vulnerability assessment and the more effective strategies of damage mitigation. To define building’s vulnerability conditions before a seismic event, is a key factor in the evaluation of the type of buildings needs to be restored first. Moving from these suggestions, demonstrating the reliability of the methodologies results, helps to improve buildings resilience to shocks, life safety and the protection of architectural heritage. The implementation of the latter strategies to Italian historical centres will lead public administrations to an effective use of vulnerability assessment method, in order to enhance preventative planning and reduce the urban settlement’s seismic risk