GIS Methodologies for the Management of Seismic Risk and the Damage Prevention on Masonry-Built Heritage

The Geographic Information System (GIS) is increasingly used in the scientific field for the management and conservation of built heritage. The present paper proposes a GIS methodology for the collection and analysis of the data related to the seismic risk and for the management of damage prevention interventions on masonry architectural assets, based on the empirical approach. Indeed, starting from the observation of real damage, that occurred after the recent Italian earthquakes, it was possible to collect a large amount of data, which has been organized and queried using the GIS tool. This methodology was tested on two different architectural typologies, designing two different databases: protruding elements and fortified architectures. This proactive tool allowed both the correlation between constructive features and damage mechanisms, through statistical analyses, and the comparison of the damage levels with the seismic action of the site, through the introduction in the GIS of the shakemaps, to identify the empirical fragility curves, which represent the expected damage, depending on the seismic action. Then, these functions were applied to an area without earthquake damage, using the seismic actions provided by the hazard map. This methodology allowed the identification of the assets most at risk in case of future seismic events, on a large scale. Knowing the vulnerabilities of the heritage means being able to act preventively, with planned conservation strategies, optimizing the management of economic resources, and minimizing invasive interventions.