A risk-based system for managing the retrofitting of school buildings in seismic prone areas: a case study from Iran

Abstract

Earthquake events are inevitable but the consequences of earthquake disasters are partially controllable using an effective risk management system, since the seismic risk is the interaction of ground shaking intensity with the built environment. A systematic risk-based method is proposed for assessing the resilience capacities of school buildings exposed to varying levels of seismic risk. This approach screens and monitors the equivalent seismic performance of buildings by the means of new composite risk index (FSRi). The process of performance assessment of existing buildings is usually performed through walk-down surveys and associated with expert judgments which are often highly subjective. The pervasive nature of uncertainty within the risk assessment process often ignored or not completely reflected within the existing models. To handle the uncertainty associated with risk attributes, fuzzy set theory was used to characterize the uncertain qualitative information. The application of the model was applied to retrofitting school buildings in Iran. The screening results reveal that the composite risk index (FSRi) does not necessarily follow its factors' trends and therefore relying on sole factors such as hazard and vulnerability may mislead the decision making process . Therefore seismic mitigation decisions should be made in compliance with the multi dimensional aspects of seismic risk as an aggregated index rather , such as FSRi.

Seismic Risk Management: A System-Based Perspective

“…The application of system-based risk management within multiple regions prone to varying seismicity has been extensively discussed by Vahdat et al (2014 a,b). Vahdat and Smith (2014) also demonstrated the application of system approach in prioritizing the seismic risk of school buildings. According to these studies, the application of system approach in school buildings is critical in three aspects.…”

“…According to Vahdat et al (2014) seismic risk management is intrinsically complex in nature due to its multidisciplinary context that involves multiple sources, cause-effects and interaction within criteria, alternatives and stakeholders. Further, planning for disaster risk management deals with not only the physical and structural consequences of a natural hazard but also the different socioeconomic, environmental, historical considerations that might influence a population or even future generations.…”

Application of a multiple attribute group decision making (MAGDM) model for selecting appropriate maintenance strategy for marine and offshore machinery operations

“…To establish a decision matrix for the evaluation process, as shown in Figure 3, expert opinions on the decision alternative with respect to each criterion can be made using linguistic variables. Linguistic variables are often used when describing situations that are too complex and fuzzy to be analysed quantitatively (Vahdat et al, 2014a). Human judgements, including preferences, are often vague and their preferences cannot be indicated by an exact numerical value (Vahdat et al, 2014b), therefore, a more realistic approach may be to use linguistic assessments such as "very good", "medium good" and "good" instead of numerical values.…”