top of page
This site was designed with the
.com
website builder. Create your website today.Start Now

Analysis

We chose to focus on key, government-owned or government-funded buildings to act as relief centres, as these would be easier to regulate and manage than privately owned buildings. Elementary schools, secondary schools, community centres, and public libraries were included to act as relief centres in the event of a detrimental earthquake.

 

 

We also recommend that special attention be paid to the Marpole/Southern Granville and Cambie area of the City, as it is very likely that a huge influx of people from Richmond will occur, as a result of the instable geology upon which much of Richmond is built on. These relative capacities should help with these efforts in the future. 

Creating a Buffer

The main streets in the City of Vancouver are likely to be chaotic and will need to remain accessible after a major earthquake. For this reason, to avoid being in the way of emergency vehicles, gathering places should not located within 50m of a main street. We used the buffer tool to create this 50m buffer, and removed any buildings which fell within it. The resulting map is shown to the right.

 

The streets we used for this buffer were:

 

 

 

  • 16th

  • 10th

  • 41st

  • King Edward

  • 33rd

  • 57th

  • Powell

  • Kerr

  • Dunbar

  • Hastings

  • Kingsway

  • Cambie

  • Granville

  • Commercial

  • Main

  • Broadway

  • 4th

  • Arbutus

  • Knight

  • Macdonald

  • Denman

  • Robson

  • Davie

  • Smithe

  • Georgia

  • Victoria

  • Nanaimo

  • Renfrew

  • Grandview Highway

 

 

  • E 12th

  • E 1st

  • Venables

  • Rupert

  • E 22nd

  • E 29th

  • Prior

  • Dundas

  • McGill

  • Fraser

To maximise safety only the buildings on the ‘best’ land determined by our multi-criteria analysis should be used and therefore we eliminated the buildings on the intermediate and worst land. All of these buildings are eligible choices for emergency gathering places. However, some must be considered more than others.

Buildings which were built before 1970 (National Building Code of Canada, 1970) are more at risk of collapse than buildings built more recently due to changes in building codes. For this reason areas with a high proportion (>70%) of homes built before 1970 are likely to need more relief than areas with relatively newer homes. For this reason these potential emergency relief centres need special consideration. Parts of the city with a large proportion of dwellings built before 1970 need more aid than places with relatively newer buildings, and thus should be given primary focus by the city in terms of retrograding and updating existing infrastructure.

 

Response planners should be aware of the areas that will likely be most affected. From an interview (click here to read the interview) with the mayor of Vancouver, Gregor Robertson, it is clear that even he feels that older buildings have not been looked at nor reinforced, which is substantiated by our results.

Areas with higher population densities will also need more relief than areas with lower densities. Any of the buildings that were within 500 meters of a dissemination areas with a population density greater than 100 people per hectare need special consideration.

This is the final map of the best potential relief buildings to be used as gathering places in response to an earthquake. The stars represent buildings that are either in areas of relatively high population density or a relatively high proportion of buildings constructed before 1970.

Conclusions

One of our main conclusions from the final product of our map is that Vancouver is a relatively safe city in terms of physical characteristics. There are few areas that are unstable in terms of slope and most of the surficial geology is safe, with most of the city’s ground being composed of till and some volcanic rock. Elevation is also generally relatively constant and safe, with only the areas directly on the coast or beside the water below 8 metres above sea level. However, there still are certain areas of the City of Vancouver that would be relatively unsafe given their physical characteristics, such as specific sections of Kitsilano, False Creek, and Southwest Marine Drive. It would thus be inappropriate to have any sort of emergency relief in these areas and they should be avoided.

 

We determined that, in order to accommodate large influxes of individuals to a de facto emergency centre, the building would need to be large enough. Community centres, public libraries, and schools were all deemed to be appropriate for groups of people and were therefore targeted. They are generally controlled by the government and can be outfitted to provide for emergency relief. We located many of these buildings throughout the city that would not be appropriate given their location on unsafe soil, slope, and elevation. There are, however, lots of locations that are safe, furthering the conclusion that Vancouver is relatively well prepared to create emergency centres in the case of a severe earthquake.

 

However, when building age and population density is taken into account, we have located several community centres, libraries, and schools in which the city should most definitely create emergency centres. Areas that have an older general building age will need much more support in the event of a severe earthquake, as the homes and buildings may be more susceptible to significant damage. More individuals may then flee their homes and buildings in search of a safer location such as the ones we have identified. There are also centres that we have identified based on population density. The denser areas of Vancouver would also need more emergency relief and shelter locations, and therefore are of utmost importance. These areas, symbolized by stars, should thus be of a greater importance to the City of Vancouver’s relief efforts.


We have definitely achieved our goals of finding safe locations for emergency centres in Vancouver in the case of an earthquake. We have provided the basics of which areas are, in fact, physically safer and which areas must be focused on due to social and infrastructural characteristics. With our data, further primary and on-site research could be conducted in order to determine which of our various locations are ultimately the safest and most appropriate. The City of Vancouver could then investigate and reinforce the buildings we have noted for the utmost safety.

bottom of page