Earthquake Vulnerability Assessment and Critical Infrastructure Inventory of Metro Vancouver

Discussion

As seen in our results, critical infrastructure and people of Richmond, Delta, and Pitt Meadows are the most vulnerable, likely due to the high risk of liquefaction occurring during an earthquake. For residents of these locations, this means that in the event of a major earthquake, evacuation routes, emergency services, and shelters may be inaccessible, while also preventing rescue personnel from accessing those communities. Also note that Vancouver International Airport ina highly vulnerable area. Damage to any of the airport’s facilities, such as runways and terminals, could slow recovery efforts post-disaster and also have an affect on the economy of Metro Vancouver. Although Vancouver is the most densely populated city in the Metro Vancouver region, access to emergency services and evacuation shelters and little risk of liquefaction give it a low vulnerability score. As seen in our crticial infrastructure inventory maps, much of the infrastructure is required to cross river channels and bodies of water to access the multiple municipalities in the region. If these infrastructures are compromised, the potential for residents to be stranded without access to resources such as water, sewage disposal, and transportation increases exponentially. Transportation across these water bodies is crucial in an earthquake event as the ability to displace affected residents from damaged and vulnerable areas is key in post earthquake recovery and response.

Limitations

Some critical infrastructure data only exist regionally, in order to apply to the entire study area, we gave the priority to the ones that are more accessible to get data from. Due to the private nature of some infrastructure such as natural gas lines and power transmitters, this data was unable to be included in our analysis and thus should not be interpreted as a complete analysis of vulnerabilities. Also, some data used in our critical infrastructure inventory have been digitized by us and therefore could show inaccuracies in location. For our vulnerability analysis, some important factors may have not been included when determining social and physical vulnerabilities such as foregin populations and landslide risk zones. 2006 census data was acquired through CHASS which did not provide census information for some dissemination areas in the Metro Vancouver region. The absence of these DA's leaves holes in some of our analysis as these areas could not be properly represented. Overall, we performed our analysis to the best of our ability using the resources that were available to us. We believe our analysis can be a useful resource for those willing to educate themselves of the vulnerabilities of an earthquake in Metro Vancouver.