Ecuador Earthquake 2016: Severity Index by Population, Poverty, and MMI

The British Red Cross Maps Team developed this predictive severity index for the April 2016 Ecuador earthquake by integrating population, poverty, and Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) data. It provides a calculated metric to identify regions where seismic impact intersects with socio-economic vulnerability.

Use Cases

• Prioritizing humanitarian aid distribution based on the severity index score
• Analyzing the intersection of poverty levels and seismic intensity (MMI)
• Mapping population exposure to earthquake hazards in specific Ecuadorian provinces

Strengths

• Integrates multi-source data from USGS and HDX
• Uses HXL (Humanitarian Exchange Language) tagging for interoperability
• Expert-derived index from the British Red Cross Maps Team

Limitations

• Predictive model output rather than ground-truth damage assessment
• Relies on 2016-era socio-economic data which may not reflect current demographics
• Small metadata footprint with unknown record count

Provenance

Source

British Red Cross Maps Team, USGS, and HDX

Collection Method

Synthetic calculation based on secondary data sources

Time Range

2016

Freshness

Last updated March 2026; reflects the 2016 earthquake event.

Geography

Ecuador