Societal Implications

This volume of selected readings and the handbook it accompanies have been developed to provide participants in the building process at the local, state, and regional levels with the information they need to adequately address the potential effects on their communities of using new or improved seismic safety design provisions in the development of regulations for new buildings. It represents one product of an ongoing program conducted by the Building Seismic Safety Council (BSSC) for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). A brief description of this program is presented below so that readers of the handbook and these selected readings can approach their use with a fuller understanding of their purpose and limitations. In the chapters included in the handbook: The potential impacts identified by the committee are described. Information sources and data bases that may be able to provide communities with general as well as specific information and guidance are listed. General terms related to earthquakes are defined and the modified Mercalli intensity (MMI) scale and the Richter magnitude scale are described. In this accompanying volume of selected readings, the committee has assembled a series of papers that address various aspects of the seismic safety issue. A number of these papers were prepared specifically for the BSSC study and several were presented at the BSSC committee meetings with building process participants. Several other papers were originally presented at a 1984 FEMA workshop but were not published. Included are: An estimate of the impact of the NEHRP Recommended Provisions on design and construction costs developed for the BSSC study; Descriptions of the seismic hazard in various areas of the United States developed for the BSSC study; Explanations of seismic safety codes; Descriptions of current seismic hazard mitigation practices and programs; A description of recent seismic safety policy research developed for the BSSC study; A summary of the BSSC committee meetings with building process participants in Charleston, Memphis, St. Louis, and Seattle; A relatively extensive set of references.