NEHRP Publishes Final Strategic Plan for Earthquake Hazard Studies
December 3, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS
| |
| Construction Industry Tools |
IHS sells a full selection of standards, ICC building codes and Plan Analyst software to check compliance.
To learn more, and for a free quote, please complete the form below. |
|
The National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) published a new, five-year strategic plan to guide the activities of the four federal agencies that participate in the program.
NEHRP's goal is to reduce losses through better understanding of earthquake generation and propagation processes, improved design and construction techniques for new and existing buildings and lifelines, monitoring and early-warning systems and assisting states and localities in developing coordinated emergency preparedness plans and public education.
The NEHRP plan was originally published for comment last spring. The final plan lists nine strategic priorities important to understanding earthquake phenomena, improving rapid community recovery from earthquakes and developing cost-effective measures to reduce impacts on individuals, society and construction.
Some of these measures include:
- Fully implement the Advanced National Seismic System for impact notification, deployment of response, hazard assessments and research.
- Develop cost-effective techniques and tools to design new earthquake-resistant buildings and improve the survivability of existing buildings.
- Create realistic earthquake scenarios to help communities and businesses better understand and plan for earthquake consequences.
- Design earthquake-resilient infrastructure to end vulnerabilities and possible cascading failures in critical, interconnected transportation, ports, energy, water, sewage, communications and industrial production systems.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is the lead agency in NEHRP. Other participants include the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). These agencies partner with state and local governments, private enterprise, professional organizations and academia.
The plan can be found at the NEHRP web site.
Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).