Life-cycle analysis (LCA) to restore community building portfolios by building back better I: Building portfolio LCA

Abstract

In recent years, the United States and other countries have experienced catastrophic consequences of severe natural hazards, e.g. the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, the 2011 Christchurch Earthquake, and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. These consequences motivate the question: How should a community’s damaged building portfolio be reconstructed efficiently to enhance its performance under future hazard events and meet the resilience goals of the community? The relatively recent notion of Building Back Better requires a quantitative methodology that can address each phase of building portfolio recovery following a severe hazard event and provide decision support to best enhance the performance of the portfolio under future hazards. This study extends notions of life-cycle analysis from individual buildings to building portfolios to support post-hazard reconstruction decisions at the community level. The building portfolio expected life-cycle cost and cumulative prospect value are adopted as decision metrics which reflect varying degrees of risk aversion on the part of community decision-makers. The applicability of these building portfolio life-cycle analyses and some key aspects in their implementation are explored using a moderate-sized community that is susceptible to extreme earthquake hazards.