IFRC Shelter Technical Training Yverdon-Les-Bains, Switzerland | 3 rd – 7 th March 2008 This session will look at how to quantify the impacts of different.

IFRC Shelter Technical TrainingYverdon-Les-Bains, Switzerland | 3rd – 7th March 2008

International Federationof Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

This session will look at how to quantify the impacts of different hazards upon housing and infrastructure

Assessing building damage30 mins

Bam, Iran 2003



The key learning objectives of this session are to form anunderstanding of:

1. Phases of assessment

2. Differences in building damage

Session objectives






Session objectives



Phases of assessment

Damage assessment varies over time and needs to be undertakenin series of steps:

1. Preliminary assessment

2. Initial assessment

3. Detailed technical assessment

4. Macro assessment of entire affected area

5. Monitoring

6. Evaluation

See session ‘assessment, monitoring evaluation’



Before rapid assessment, assessment of building safety,occupancy, loss of life is often undertaken by:

• Search And Rescue (SAR) teams: deployed immediately after a disaster

• United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) teams: mobilized rapidly to coordinate the search and rescue operations with the national authorities.

Preliminary assessment

It is important to contact these teams in order to gain from them information concerning the scope and results of their preliminary assessments.



SAR teams use standard marking system for buildings:

A – name of team, date, time of visit/work

B – types of risks encountered (hazardous materials)

W water

Gas gas leakage

Chem chemical products

EXPL explosive materials

F fuels or other inflammable materials

electricity

risk of collapse

radioactivity

C – number of dead

D – number of people unaccounted for

E – number of people saved

Preliminary assessment

CA

B

E

D



In the first days of the response, the objective of initial assessment is:

1. to achieve an understanding of the scale of the damage

2. to estimate where the damage is more severe

3. to inform the development of technical assessment criteria and housing damage categories

4. to bring together all available assessment capacity

5. to initiate assessment coordination

Initial assessment

It is essential to achieve a successful handover to the technical specialists undertaking more detailed assessment.



The objective is to identify the relative damage to housing andinfrastructure in order to inform:

1. levels of assistance

2. forms of assistance

3. scale of assistance

4. location of assistance

5. priorities of assistance

6. vulnerabilities

Detailed technical assessment



Macro assessment of entire affected area

Damaged must be assessed at a national level in order to inform:

1. strategic planning

2. appeals processes

3. understandings of impacts upon the national and regional economy and environment

Governments may agree an approach to macro assessment: following the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004, a Tsunami Recovery Impact Assessment and Monitoring System (TRIAMS) was discussed and endorsed by the Global Consortium for Tsunami-Affected Countries

IFIs have their own approaches to damage and loss measurement: the World Bank has used the methodology for disaster damage and loss assessment developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN-ECLAC), common in that region since 1972

Handbook for Estimating the Socio-Economic and Environmental Effects of Disasters (UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the World Bank, 2003)



Housing damages categories

Category 0

No damage

Category 1 Category 2 Category 3 Category 4

Minor damage, assistance required

Partial damage, can be repaired

Severe damage, can be repaired

Destroyed,cannot be repaired

The categories of damage presented below have been used following conflicts to describe damage to housing, supported by 1-page rapid village and rapid housing assessment forms.

Similar categories may be agreed following conflicts and disasters.

Different categories may be developed for different building types.



Basic building assessmentThe following primary information may be gathered during early

assessment to inform decisions on priority, what type of assistance is required, and whether repair should be considered:

1. Use 1.a residence 1.d commerce1.b office 1.e factory1.c school 1.f hospital

2. Type 2.a stone, adobe 2.d reinforced concrete structure2.b masonry/wooden roof 2.e steel structure2.c masonry/concrete roof

3. Damage 3.a category 0 – no damage 3.d category 3 – severe damage, can be repaired

3.b category 1 – minor damage 3.e category 4 – destroyed3.c category 2 – partial damage,

can be repaired

4. Plan 4.a square 4.c L-shaped4.b rectangular 4.d complex

5. Soil 5.a soft 5.c rock5.b hard 5.d sloping



Coordination

Coordination needs to be achieved between stakeholders in order to:

1. Maximize capacity for assessment

2. Ensure all geographic areas are covered

3. Ensure assessment is consistent and response equitable

4. Reinforce the relations between the stakeholders

It is rarely possible or valuable to enforce coordination. Therefore, proactive steps must be taken to identify how to makecoordination valuable for each stakeholder.






Session objectives



Damage levels

Damage levels can depend upon a number of factors:

1. hazards

2. intensity

3. location

4. vulnerabilities

5. buildings

6. zones



Different damage from different hazards

Each different hazard has its own different patterns:

Earthquakes may have 3 different directions ofmotion:

• vertical motion• horizontal motion• vertical and horizontal motion simultaneously

Floods may be:

• fast-onset• slow-onset



Disasters have different intensities, measured with scales, such as:

• earthquakes: (the Richter scale, 1-10, is now almost obsolete)Modified Mercalli intensity scale, 1-12, quantifies effects on the Earth's surface, humans, objects of nature, and structures, eg Intensity 11, ‘Very Disastrous’: few, if any masonry structures remain standing; bridges destroyed; rails bent greatly

• tornadoes: Fujita scale or Fujita-Pearson scale, 0-5 (6 levels) is based on damage to structures and vegetation, eg:Intensity 4, ‘Devastating Damage’: 333–418 km/h; well-constructed houses levelled; structures with weak foundations blown away some distance; cars thrown and large missiles generated. The Enhanced Fujita Scale, which has been introduced in the USA, adds new construction methods

• hurricanes: Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, 1-5, is used for most Western Hemisphere tropical cyclones that exceed the intensities of tropical depressions and tropical storms, egIntensity 4: 210–249 km/h winds; 4.0–5.5 metres storm surge

Different damage from different intensity



The physical location of the disaster determines the impact uponsettlement:

• flooding on a low-lying costal settlement

• earthquakes under a settlement on an alluvial plain

• cyclones entering a bay on a coast

Different damage from different locations



Different damage from vulnerability

The population will be affected differently depending on theirsocial and economic status.

The more vulnerable groups are:

• populations living in high-risk locations• populations living in poor-quality buildings

These vulnerable groups are most likely to be or become:

• displaced populations• marginal groups• low-income populations• urban populations

Higher-income groups may be at greater risk if they adoptnew building technologies that do not incorporate traditionalhazard resistant design.



Different types of buildings will be damaged differently by the samedisaster:

• poorly-built apartments blocks may be more vulnerable to earthquakes than houses with traditional seismically resistant design

• schools may be less damaged than housing if they are built to higher-standards by government contractors following enforced building codes

• older building may be damaged differently from newer building due to different construction, materials and techniques

Different damage from different buildings



Within a disaster affected area, there will be different levels of damage which may be categorised into different zones, with anepicentre where the damage is greatest:

• the zones of damage will describe the vulnerability of the location and the vulnerability of the buildings

• zones may be highly-localised, for example in a flood where one street is damaged while the next street is not, because it is on high-ground

• zones of damage approximate to a hazard map, which may be used for future disaster risk reduction and preparedness

Different damage from different zones



Zones of housing damage

Example of zones of housing damage, and movements between zones, following an earthquake

Housing located in different zones will be damaged differently.Diagram:Transitional settlement and reconstruction after natural disaster (United Nations, 2008)






Summary



Discussion

Identify one disaster and list the differences in building damage:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Discussionin pairs

IFRC Shelter Technical Training Yverdon-Les-Bains, Switzerland | 3 rd – 7 th March 2008 This session will look at how to quantify the impacts of different.

Documents

technical assessment

session assessment

rapid assessment

loss assessment

detailed assessment

detailed technical assessment

early assessment

assessment of building