Define Urban Limit Conditions by Applying Performance Goals

A growing interest concerning the seismic risk assessment at urban scale has been observed. In Italy, recent earthquakes highlighted the vulnerability of the built environment causing severe damage and a high number of casualties. In addition, historical city centres are part of the cultural heritage and their preservation is deemed necessary. For these reasons, understanding how to assess urban systems behaviour is crucial. A major step in this direction is the definition of the Emergency Limit Condition (ELC), by the Civil Protection Department. More recently, a theoretical framework with four additional urban limit conditions has been proposed. This paper tries to take a step forward in this direction by assigning specific performance goals to defined urban limit conditions. These goals are linked to different level of damage and functionality loss of buildings and infrastructures and the possible short-to-long term effects on the population and economy.