Resilience Strategy After 2016 Central Italy Earthquake in Historical Centres: Seismic Vulnerability Assessment Method of Traditional Masonry Buildings

The experience of the 2016 earthquake in central Italy shows that the approach to the post-seismic phase is still based on an emergency approach, while the prevention and the reduction of seismic risk are proving difficult. In the particular context of rural and mountainous area, the seismic shock produced the depopulation of several minor historical centres and the scattering of urban communities. This kind of damage had dramatic impacts on the possibility of both preservation and restoration of traditional architectures, due to the specificity of the peculiar material used and construction techniques. In order to reverse the trend, the goal of future interventions must be to provide a reconstruction strategy, with the aim of defining the problems to be solved as a priority in the post-seismic phase and, at the same time, to provide risk prevention measures also within ordinary planning. The starting point of the current research is the impact of the earthquake on the historical centre of Caldarola to evaluate the damage state through three types of analyses: at the urban scale to identify the performance deficits that caused the loss of functionality of the whole urban system; at the building scale, through an expeditious assessment method to identify the vulnerability of the building façade in relation to the usability of the emergency routes; in addition, the vulnerability of the building aggregates have been examined to verify the correspondence between the real damage occurred postearthquake. The analysis results highlight a strong link between the development of an empirical vulnerability assessment and the more effective strategies of damage mitigation.