Earthquake engineering is the scientific field concerned with protecting society, the natural environment, and the man-made environment from earthquakes by limiting the seismic risk to socio-economically acceptable levels. Earthquake engineering is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering that uses engineering principles to analyze and design structures to reduce the effect of earthquakes. It combines knowledge of engineering disciplines such as structural, geotechnical, and earthquake engineering with knowledge of related topics such as geology, seismology, and soil mechanics to develop structures which will minimize the potential damage caused by earthquakes.