Chapter 1: The nature of earthquake risk

The tools of the trade of the earthquake engineer form the subject matter of the rest of this book. This chapter looks beyond the technical issues involved to consider the much broader range of issues that contribute to a society’s success or failure in reducing the impact of earthquakes.

This is a book written by two structural engineers for fellow construction professionals and students. The subsequent chapters address the many and diverse technical issues that have to be grappled with when designing in earthquake country; the challenge of trying to come to grips with these issues is continually fascinating and demanding, and has absorbed much more than half of both authors’ careers. Being able to understand and analyse the way in which an earthquake stresses a building, choosing buildable structural forms and materials to cope with these stresses, and then translating these concepts into practical, affordable and perhaps even beautiful spaces that people want to use and live in is a vitally important task. The aim of the book is to provide an introduction to the technical issues that help make this achievable.