post-master research fellowship: Exposure assessment for building typologies integrating innovative survey techniques

PROJECT GOALS: EXPLORA project will contribute to the development of a suitable exposure model for ordinary buildings in Montenegro and to the updated seismic risk assessment for the country. An innovative integrated multi-level survey approach will be implemented and applied in pilot municipalities, allowing to assemble building inventory according to relevant up-to-date vulnerability models. Image-based processing techniques,  will be employed to rapidly gather spatial type building features, such as building shape and height, over large regions. Other needed building characteristics, e.g. building age and construction material, will be integrated combining census data with an interview-based survey for building typologies and applied to town compartments. Employing the integrated multi-level survey of pilot municipalities as a “training set”, Machine Learning based techniques will be adopted to expand the inventory at the national level. The updated exposure model could be usefully combined with recent vulnerability and hazard models (e.g. ESHM20 for hazard) towards a next generation NRA for Montenegro, including assessment of higher risk areas to plan retrofitting mitigation campaigns.

FELLOWSHIP GOALS: Development of an innovative methodology for the exposure assessment of ordinary buildings to be applied for large-scale risk analysis. The methodology will be based on multi-level surveys, which integrate traditional data acquisition systems such as survey for building typologies with techniques based on digital image processing and geo-statistical analysis approaches (e.g. machine learning in combination with GIS).