Earthquake Risk Tolerance for Building Codes

Building codes and supporting standards are central to managing life-safety risks in earthquakes. Recent advances in risk-based design make acceptable risk thresholds explicit. These thresholds determine the demands used in design, which in turn influence the form and size of structures that can be built.

Selecting appropriate thresholds, however, is complex and requires balancing current practice, societal expectations, and regulatory objectives. This project compiles and compares life-safety risk thresholds used by regulators worldwide, adopting annual individual fatality risk (AIFR) as the common metric. The analysis highlights significant cross-regional differences and the role of local hazard contexts and public perception.

It argues for a tiered framework for acceptable vs. tolerable risk, contextualizing AIFR within broader societal risks and informing updates to New Zealand’s building code — and potentially beyond.

📰 Related Publication

• Earthquake Fatality Risk Tolerance: What risk thresholds should be used in setting building code provisions? (In preparation)

👥 Collaborators

• Ken Elwood
• Caleb Dunne
• Anne M Hulsey
• Charlotte Brown