The seismic resilience-based methodology of regional building function recovery assessment

Abstract

Regional assessment of the functional recovery time of urban buildings is critical for decision-making after an earthquake, both as a key indicator of seismic disaster risk and for evaluating urban resilience. However, existing studies are insufficient for assessing the functional recovery time of buildings at the city scale. To address this issue, this study proposes a new methodology for predicting the functional recovery time of an area. This approach comprehensively considers performance-based repair objectives, various damage states, and the affected building area. It offers two improvements over traditional methods based on the assumption of unlimited restoration resources within the disaster area. First, the method establishes a standard for categorizing damaged buildings into repairable and reconstructive buildings using the building damage level parameter. The existing moderate damage states are considered rough and are further divided into three detailed damage states. The distribution functions of the three new states relative to the existing moderate damage are derived from actual earthquake cases. Second, a new parameter, the reconstruction rate, which characterizes the rate of reconstruction time per unit area of a building, is proposed. The repair time per unit area of a house in a repairable state, i.e., the repair rate, is discounted based on this new parameter using the damage state as an indicator. To illustrate the methodology in more detail, we constructed an earthquake scenario for the northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau and then provided a detailed assessment of the postearthquake recovery time of Zhangye under the earthquake scenario. This study aims to provide valuable insights for the government to formulate appropriate predisaster prevention policies and rational postdisaster recovery and reconstruction.