Rapid Loss Assessment for Earthquake Disaster Based on AHP and Case Matching

Abstract

Timely and rapid assessment of earthquake loss in the gold 72 hours after earthquake is important for rescue decision-making. In practice, however, earthquake related data are complex and coming from various sources, making it difficult to obtain the detailed data in the incomplete information regions. Existing popular assessment methods usually need lots of detailed data, which will delay the evaluation time and miss the gold rescue time. Based on the similar theory and the historical earthquake cases, this paper proposed a novel case matching approach for earthquake loss assessment in the area of incomplete information. The proposed approach first identified earthquake influence factors through analyzing ninety-two historical earthquake cases, and then gave the weight of each factor by using the analysis hierarchy process (AHP) method. Finally, it matched the best similar earthquake case and estimated the deaths and the disaster level according to the similar earthquake case. Three representative earthquakes are presented as case studies to evaluate the proposed approach. The results show that, the proposed method can rapid loss evaluation results without detailed data. It can provide useful information for the post-earthquake rescuing, especially in the incomplete information region.