Seismic risk assessment based on residential building stock and field survey results: a case study of 3 cities in Shanxi Province

Introduction Buildings that collapse or are damaged by earthquakes are responsible for the majority of earthquake-related casualties. High-precision building data are the key to improving the accuracy of risk assessments of earthquake disaster loss. Many countries and regions have also proposed varying regional building exposure models, but most of these models are still based on administrative-level (city or county) statistical data; furthermore, they cannot accurately reflect the differences among buildings in different towns or villages. Methods Although field investigation-based “township to township” methods can obtain more accurate building inventory data, considering costs and timeliness, remote sensing and other diverse data should be combined to acquire building data. Based on the field survey data of three cities in shanxi Province, combined with Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL) data, this study is conducted on building inventory data. Data regarding the proportion of each building type and corresponding lethality level in each township are obtained based on the classification of building height, and the overall lethality level at the building level and township level is calculated on this basis. Results The fitting results between the calculated results and the field survey results are good, the error is within 0.15, and the fitting R 2 values of Xian, Baoji and Ankang are 0.6552, 0.5788 and 0.5937, respectively. Therefore, an earthquake disaster loss risk assessment is conducted based on the building level. Discussion The findings indicate that the risk of casualties caused by the same building type can vary by city. Generally, the areas with high disaster loss risk in the three cities are distributed mainly in urban areas; the disaster loss risk in the newly built areas of each city is relatively low. According to the quantitative assessment results for each city, Xi’an has the highest loss risk, while Baoji and Ankang have the same loss risk. Based on the method constructed in this paper, we can realize the quantitative assessment of earthquake disaster loss risk at the building level to better target pre-earthquake emergency preparation and post-earthquake auxiliary decision-making.