In the last years the “disaster” scientific community has increasingly recognized the relevance of vulnerability and related concepts (resilience, coping capacity, adaptation) in managing natural risks. The limitation of structural measures taken with the aim of reducing the hazard severity and/or frequency has come to evidence. Those are still important; yet other measures able to reduce exposure and vulnerability are recognized as increasingly necessary. Seismic engineers have been dealing with physical vulnerability of structures since long time, as clearly nothing can be really done to mitigate earthquakes as phenomena. Not only new constructions were covered by analysis and care, but also the large built stock, including historic heritage.
Seismic engineers have achieved significant advancement in vulnerability assessment. However, several recent events in Italy and elsewhere have dramatically shown that structural resistance is one component of the overall seismic response of complex systems like cities, but not the only one. Urban and spatial planning decisions should embed concerns regarding amplification zones, potential induced effects triggered by an earthquake (like tsunami or land- slides), cascading effects among interconnected systems. This has been done only to a very limited extent until now. Among the reasons is the lack of tools for actually addressing the multiple vulnerability facets that must be looked at for such a comprehensive mitigation effort. In the article, the results of a recently concluded European funded research project (Ensure) are presented; an application of the tool and methodology developed during the project has been carried out on the case of the Salò municipality in the province of Brescia, Northern Italy.