Abstract
The damage done in earthquake disasters is correlated to the types of housing structures that are present. In the last two decades of urbanization in Dhaka, rapid growth without proper planning has been a major concern. This study evaluates the performance of the decision tree and random forest techniques to predict structures’ vulnerability factors for buildings as a step towards improving earthquake disaster preparedness. Applying the decision tree algorithm to locations (wards) in Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) and Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), we observed some important predictors of earthquake damage. Decision tree analysis reveals that the most important predictor for structures that fare well in earthquakes is the use of reinforced concrete, and a common factor among the most vulnerable structures is the soft story building style in the DNCC and DSCC areas. The random forest technique also showed reinforced concrete as being the most important factor for lowering the risk for housing structures, with the model having a 24.19% out-of-bag (OOB) error. As for vulnerability, soft story construction was a significant factor in estimating earthquake susceptibility (40.32% OOB error). The findings reveal that building materials in the DNCC are stronger than those in the DSCC but soft story buildings are more common in the DNCC, which make it one of the weakest parts of the area and point to the need to make plans to seismically retrofit soft story buildings.
Highlights
The capital city of Bangladesh is Dhaka, which has become one of Earth’s megacities
The urban center is administered by the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) which is split into two administrative parts, the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) and the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), in order to offer better facilities
This paper examines housing structures and vulnerability factors in Dhaka city in order to facilitate earthquake preparations
Summary
The capital city of Bangladesh is Dhaka, which has become one of Earth’s megacities. The urban center is administered by the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) which is split into two administrative parts, the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) and the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC), in order to offer better facilities (see Figure 3). Most buildings were erected without the oversight of a proper earthquake disaster prevention system [2] Collective consciousness regarding this problem has risen among some limited groups, but, practically, city dwellers and policy makers are not sufficiently aware of their seismic vulnerability. Non-reinforced masonry structures are among the most vulnerable patterns of the building during an earthquake. This bond is often very poor when lime mortars or mud mortars are used [5] Massive losses of both human lives and properties from the Nepal earthquake in 2015 demonstrate the need to strengthen masonry structures due to their poor seismic performance, as indicated by their inherent brittleness and low tensile strength [6]. Earthquakes urban areas in Bangladesh have highlighted the urgency of pushing to strengthen these seismic deficient structures and making progress in developing various strengthening and rehabilitation techniques to boost structures’ seismic performance [10]
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