Central Asia, considered here Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, is one of the parts of the world with the highest levels of seismic hazard. It is also a region undergoing major social changes, which results in a highly dynamic risk-scape, in terms of both exposure and vulnerability. As part of efforts to mitigate against the negative effects of earthquakes, the German Research Centre for Geosciences is developing the Central Asian Risk And Vulnerability Analysis Tool (CARAVAN). CARAVAN is a web-based application for on-demand, near real-time scenario-based risk assessment in Central Asia (Manual - PDF).

The role of CARAVAN is twofold:

• to compute and display in near real-time impact assessments from earthquake events, and

• to provide to regional partners and end-users (e.g., Ministry of Emergency Situations) a simple, reliable tool to simulate the consequences of damaging earthquakes (both historical and those compatible with recent hazard models).