Emergency intervention and cost assessment for seismic damages on cultural heritage

Destructive seismic events in Italy significantly affected the local communities, causing significant extraordinary expenses. Among all direct and indirect costs of earthquakes, those of safety measures for injured buildings represent one of the major expenditures in the emergency phase. Therefore, the cost assessment of seismic damages as well as the optimization of first aid actions are both crucial issues to effectively manage the limited economic resources and quickly restore the normal social-economic activities. However, emergency solutions employed in past events have often proved to be uneconomic, ineffective, and sometimes even harmful for the building itself, especially when dealing with cultural heritage. The research presented in the following investigated the Emilian emergency response after the 2012 earthquake to improve the management of economic resources and first aid interventions. In the specific, the interventions on injured religious buildings were analysed in both their general features and individual peculiarities with the aim of identifying which are the factors that most influence the expense. As result, a method for cost assessment have been defined to identify an expenditure value according to the level of damage. Moreover, the first aid techniques have been studied in their operative, structural, conservative, and economic aspects to optimize the costs of safety measures. Strategies and practical indications of intervention were provided aiming at supporting the risk management for cultural heritage.