This award will enable Jane Preuss and a colleague of Urban Regional Research, Seattle, Washington, to collaborate with Salvador Farreras and Francisco Suarez of the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education of Ensenada and Antonio Sanchez of the Naval Oceanographic Research Station, Ensenada, Mexico, in an analysis of the impact of the 1985 Mexican earthquake on coastal communities. They will also analyze the vulnerability to earthquake hazard of selected western coastal Mexican communities and develop recommendations for reducing vulnerability to future earthquakes and other coastal hazards, such as storm surges and hurricanes. The Mexican earthquake produced unexpected damage in some areas and left other likely areas unscathed. The study will attempt to get a clearer understanding of the pattern of seismic hazard to coastal communities by evaluating both ground motion and other geophysical data and the structural engineering and urban design components of the seismic and tsunami wave damage along the coast. The geoscientific analyses of conditions related to the hazard will be done by the Mexican team, which has expertise in geology and physical oceanography. The U.S. team, which has expertise in urban planning and structural design for natural hazard mitigation, will be responsible for recommendations for microzonation/urban planning and for the design aspects of reconstruction and long-term mitigation. Both groups are well-qualified for their components of the cooperative project. The results of this study will be useful to planners in the U.S. and elsewhere where coastal communities may be susceptible to such disasters. The results will be of particular value to the Mexican government in evaluating the feasibility of targeting selected coastal communities for growth as a part of its reconstruction and decentralization strategies.
