Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of the Urban Building Environment in Nablus, Palestine

ABSTRACT

This article describes a specifically developed framework to produce a seismic physical vulnerability model of residential buildings in Nablus (Palestine) within the European project SASPARM2.0. Based on the structural taxonomy of the territory, two different forms were defined to collect geometrical and structural data of buildings by different stakeholders (citizens and practitioners). This data was then employed to produce fragility curves using the mechanics-based procedure SP-BELA. To estimate seismic risk, the developed fragility model was combined with a hazard curve for the corresponding location. The described procedure is implemented in a WebGIS platform that allows to georeference and assess the surveyed buildings and define retrofitting strategies. Finally, the article carries out a comparison between the fragility curves of buildings in Nablus and the ones calculated for similar building typologies within a UNDP Jordan project aiming at the integrated risk assessment in Wadi Musa and surroundings.

KEYWORDS:

• Data collection
• fragility curves
• seismic risk
• structural vulnerability
• WebGIS platform

Acknowledgments

We thank J. Dabbeek, I. Grigoratos and V. Cerchiello for their invaluable work in the development of the different tasks of SASPARM 2.0 Project.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the DG-ECHO (European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations) ECHO/SUB/2014/694399.