Remote Sensing and Gis Contribution to Earthquake Disaster Preparedness in Hungary

When catastrophic earthquakes happen and affect cities and settlements, immediate and efficient actions are required which ensure the minimization of the damage and loss of human lives. Responding local and national authorities should be provided in advance with information and maps where the highest damages due to unfavourable, local site conditions and earthquake related secondary effects such as landslides, liquefaction, soil amplifications or compaction can be assumed. There is a strong need to improve the systematic, standardized inventory of those areas. As a prerequisite for such a planning base a uniform data base with a common set of strategies, standards and formats should be implemented. The evaluation of satellite imageries, digital topographic data and of open-source geo-data can contribute to the acquisition of the specific tectonic, geologic and geomorphologic settings influencing local site conditions and, thus, to a first data base stock facilitating the planning of further geotechnical investigations. This is demonstrated by the example of Central-Hungary. RapidEyeand GeoEye-satellite data form an important part of this data base being a valuable tool for the detection of traces of tectonic features and of slope failure. Another important aspect for the emergency preparedness and damage loss estimations is the actual inventory of land use and infrastructure, of industrial facilities and of settlements and cities considering age, structure, type and function of buildings. Data for hospitals and health centres, schools, governmental buildings, police, fire stations and industrial buildings from Central-Hungary were stored in a GIS, as well as geological maps, earthquake and seismotectonic data.