Characterization of the Structural Typologies of Buildings in the Lima Metropolitan Area

Abstract

The Lima metropolitan area is in a prone earthquake zone, which is exposed to a seismic gap; this can result in Mw 8.9 megathrust earthquake in the central Peru. After the Pisco earthquake in 2007, risk management policies changed in Peru and are improving annually. Thus, more resources are destinated to assessing earthquake hazard, vulnerability, and risk in districts of the Lima metropolitan area mainly; nevertheless, they are limited to cover in detailed the whole extension of probable affected area after this potential megathrust earthquake. Data of buildings in the Lima metropolitan area were analyzed in this paper, to provide useful information in the development of rapid methodologies of identification of buildings. The Japan Peru Center for Earthquake Engineering and Disaster Mitigation (CISMID) gathered these data from 2010 to 2021 in field surveys to conduct vulnerability and risk studies; the survey of building characteristics consisted of obtain mainly the number of stories, predominant material, structural systems, type of occupancy, and state of conservation. Vulnerability and risk studies for districts of the Lima metropolitan area were conducted by considering one representative building in one block. Results showed that the predominant material in the Lima metropolitan area is masonry, used in different structural systems, such as confined masonry and other which are nonengineered structures. Also, two-story buildings are predominant in the target area, followed by one and three-stories buildings. Risk assessment for the Lima metropolitan area and the study area were conducted using the data from the characterization of structural typologies obtained in this study. Approximately, 47.72% and 58.67% of buildings presented a very high-risk level in the Lima metropolitan area and the study area, respectively, under the expected earthquake scenario due to the seismic gap in the central Peru.