Academic publications

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11951/16

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Browsing Academic publications by Subject "Building exposure"

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    Probabilistic Earthquake Risk Assessment Framework for Uganda: Event-Based Modelling Approach
    (World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, 2024-07-05) Morris Oleng; Zuhal Ozdemir; Kypros Pilakoutas
    Uganda’s geology, tectonics and morphology exposes most of its territory to earthquakes of low to moderate intensities. Past earthquakes such as the 1966 Toro, 1994 Kisomoro and 2016 Bukoba events have had detrimental consequences on the socio-economic welfare and resilience of communities across Uganda. Despite earlier efforts in predicting seismic hazard in Uganda, there is no comprehensive study published on earthquake-related risks across the country. Whilst losses during the previous earthquakes were still compar-atively low, damage due to future earthquakes are likely to escalate considerably because of the proliferation of a largely substandard building stock coupled with rapid population growth and urbanisation. As a first step towards building an earthquake risk and resilience framework for Uganda, this work employs the probabilistic event-based risk calculator of OpenQuake-engine to holistically assess potential losses resulting from future earthquakes. Using a fault-oriented spatially distributed seismicity approach, a logic tree is implemented to minimise the associated epistemic uncertainties and site conditions are modelled using the shear wave velocity in the upper 30m of soil across Uganda. The building stock is largely inferred and projected from the 2014 national population and housing census and analytical vulnerability curves are selected from the GEM global database. The analysis of earthquake ruptures, hazard maps, loss exceedance curves, mean annual loss maps and aggregated asset loss statistics indicate that western Uganda is prone to the highest risk. These findings will be a huge step towards the urgent need to update the Uganda Seismic Design Code, strategically plan land use patterns, optimise earthquake insurance pricing and improve the National Policy for Disaster Preparedness and Management.
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    Stochastic Event-Based Probabilistic Earthquake Risk Assessment Framework for Uganda: Towards Informing the National Policy for Disaster Preparedness and Management
    (Springer, 2025-02) Morris Oleng; Zuhal Ozdemir; Kypros Pilakoutas
    Catastrophic earthquakes in Uganda have the potential for detrimental consequences on the socio-economic welfare and resilience of communities. Despite considerable efforts in predicting earthquake risk across Africa, a national comprehensive seismic risk study for Uganda does not exist. With increasing population, urbanisation and rapid construction, seismic risk is escalating fast and is compounded by the high vulnerability of buildings and scanty disaster prevention and mitigation strategies. This study uses the probabilistic event-based risk calculator of the OpenQuake-engine to assess potential risks resulting from future earthquakes. Although the building exposure model is largely inferred and projected from the national population and housing census of 2014, total replacement costs are obtained by performing series of interviews with local engineering practitioners. Analytical vulnerability curves are selected from Global Earthquake Model (GEM) database. Seismic hazard studies confirm that western Uganda is exposed to the highest level of seismicity where peak ground accelerations on rock ground can reach up to 0.27 g over a 475-year return period. Relative to Uganda’s gross domestic product, the associated seismic risk estimates indicate mean economic loss ratios of 0.36%, 2.72% and 4.94% over 10, 50 and 100-year return periods respectively; with mean annual economic loss of US$ 74.7 million (0.34% relative to the total replacement value) and annual deaths averaging 71 persons across the whole country. It is envisaged that the findings will inform strategic land use planning patterns, earthquake insurance pricing and foster the continuous improvement of Uganda’s National Policy for Disaster Preparedness and Management.