Vancouver, the city in which we live in, is under threat of large earthquakes. Vancouver is located in the conjunction of the North American plate, the Pacific plate, and the Juan de Fuca plate (Dziak, 2006). Thus, experts predict that there is a fairly large chance that Vancouver will suffer a great magnitude earthquake in our lifetime (City of Vancouver). This major earthquake is referred to as the big one”.

ABS-CBN News, 2015-07-16

 The fact that Vancouver is one of the largest cities in Western Canada and has a total population of over 2.4 million makes it particularly vulnerable to earthquake impacts.  In order to minimize the damage of earthquakes, a pre-disaster risk evaluation plan, as well as a post-disaster mitigation plan, is necessary. There have been plenty of previous studies about Vancouver earthquake risks.

Fig 1. Vancouver is located among three tectonic plates

In this project, we aim to map the overall earthquake risk in Vancouver by taking into consideration the hazard and vulnerability. We will also provide some mitigation suggestions to reduce post-disaster loss based on our results.

 

Fig 2. A previous research of earthquake hazard at Greater Vancouver