Abstract
This study presents a building classification scheme for residential houses in Malawi by focusing upon informal construction, which accounts for more than 90% of housing in the country with the highest urbanisation rate in the world. The proposed classification is compatible with the Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) method and can be used for seismic vulnerability assessments of building stock in Malawi. To obtain realistic proportions of the building classes that are prevalent in Malawi, a building survey was conducted in Central and Southern Malawi between 10th and 20th July 2017. The results from the survey are used to modify the PAGER-based proportions of main housing typologies by reflecting actual housing construction in the surveyed areas. The results clearly highlight the importance of using realistic building stock data for seismic risk assessment in Malawi; relying on global building stock information can result in significant bias of earthquake impact assessment.
Highlights
Malawi is a landlocked country in Sub-Saharan Africa
Important results of this work are that discrepancies between building stock information derived from global databases (e.g. Grünthal 1998; Jaiswal et al 2011) and that obtained from the building survey reflecting the local built environment are identified, and that the influence of such discrepancies in building classification is quantified in terms of potential risk of building collapse during a severe earthquake
It is noted that the Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) building classification for Malawi assumes that about a half of the building stock is of unreinforced concrete block masonry (UCB) type, while this does not agree with what was observed in field during the building survey
Summary
Malawi is a landlocked country in Sub-Saharan Africa. The country ranks 171th worldwide according to the 2018 Human Development Index (HDI-UNDP 2018), and faces various economic and social challenges, including population growth, poverty, a volatile economy, and fast-degrading environment. Due to the unaffordability or unavailability of materials and artisans to implement these recommended construction practices in local communities, a large population in Malawi may end up with some transitional phases in terms of housing (UN-Habitat 2010) This is because the majority of current informal housing stock does not meet the standards proposed by the Safer House Construction Guidelines, leaving a large population in vulnerable conditions. Important results of this work are that discrepancies between building stock information derived from global databases (e.g. Grünthal 1998; Jaiswal et al 2011) and that obtained from the building survey reflecting the local built environment are identified, and that the influence of such discrepancies in building classification is quantified in terms of potential risk of building collapse during a severe earthquake To demonstrate the latter, an example of seismic risk assessment is presented in.
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