Welcome to the wiki of the SARA project
The South America Risk Assessment (SARA) project was a regional programme promoted by the Global Earthquake Model initiative which lasted between 2013 and 2015. The project aimed to calculate hazard and risk, and to estimate the compounding social and economic factors that increase the physical damage and decrease the post-event capacities of populations to respond to and recover from damaging earthquake events in South America, by involving local experts from throughout the region.
The project also focused on computing the risk to cities from selected scenarios, to acknowledge the importance that such studies have on the communication of risk.
The project was carried out by experts and institutions from the region using to the extent possible open data sets, methodologies and tools such as GEM’s new open source software, the OpenQuake Engine and other OpenQuake tools.
Modules
The project mainly revolves around 5 modules: hazard, exposure and physical vulnerability, socio-economic vulnerability and resilience, loss estimates and city scenarios. The modules were carried out by a variety of experts/scientists from the region, in collaboration with the project coordinators and, where relevant, the GEM Secretariat.
1. Seismic hazard
 | In early 2013 the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) published seven Requests for Proposal covering topics related to the compilation of basic datasets as well as the creation and calculation of an updated probabilistic seismic hazard input model for South America. Five consortia of South American researchers responded to this request and submitted proposals, which were reviewed in an initial stage by scientists working at the GEM Secretariat, and successively discussed in a meeting in Bogota held in December 2013 at the “Servicio Geologico Colombiano”. |
| ... see more on the SARA Hazard Component |
2. Exposure and Physical Vulnerability
 | Development of exposure datasets and vulnerability functions for South America at regional, national and/or sub-national levels have been considered. Modelling of exposure and physical vulnerability in the most earthquake prone countries is the main goal in the first stage of the project. |
| ... see more on the SARA Exposure and Physical Vulnerability Component |
3. Social Vulnerability and Resilience
 | The social vulnerability component of SARA comprises the development of composite indicators of social vulnerability and resilience along with their robustness testing and validation. The objective is to provide tools and information useful for understanding the potential effects of earthquakes in communities of South America. |
| ... see more on the Development of indicators of social vulnerability |
4. National and subnational estimation of losses
5. City Scenarios
Following the objectives of SARA, the development of city scenarios is crucial for planning risk management strategies in cities with larger concentration of population and exposed to significant hazard. In this sense, the GEM Secretariat has been seeking collaborations with research groups and governmental stakeholders that will be the end users of case studies in Lima (Peru), Quito (Ecuador), Medellín (Colombia), Iquique, Osorno and Rancagua (Chile).