The European Macroseismic Scale 1998 - (EMS 98) is an instrument for the natural hazard of earthquakes, which allows the explanation of observed differences in the behaviour of the prevailing construction types by introducing and implementing vulnerability classes. The EMS 98 enables also the identification of purely empirically justified ranges of scatter.
The basic methodology is also applicable to other natural hazards such as flood, tsunami and wind. This permits the development of a unified methodology for the consideration of building vulnerability in the sense of a multi-hazard approach.
For the first time, a vulnerability-oriented instrument is available to evaluate a building stock for different natural hazards according to criteria that have been standardised in terms of engineering.
The multi-hazard vulnerability with its possible scatters is examined and visualized on real building inventories.
With the concept of “LEGOisation” the existing buildings, a novel approach is presented to allow the sub-structuring of buildings into storeys (including roof, basement and floors) to further development of the classification towards specific damage characteristics and local vulnerability.
A still to be developed “Conceptual Simulation Tool” is described as an outlook. This uses the tools and methods developed to simulate damage and losses as a result of various natural hazards and their sequences.