Prioritization Methodology for Seismic Risk Reduction in Public Schools. Study Case: Lima, Peru

Abstract eng:
School buildings in highly seismic areas are under permanent hazard. This situation is extremely critical for student population who attend public schools with high vulnerability factors such as insecure infrastructure, poor community preparedness and deficient conditions due to social exclusion. Risk reduction becomes a challenge to the government because of the great amount of population at risk and the lack of capacity of the authorities to attend them all simultaneously. Academia and international agencies have been working to develop risk reduction strategies for schools, e.g. retrofitting infrastructure, preparedness and planning. Although it involves different areas of knowledge, few opportunities have been created for interdisciplinary and participatory work in order to create a comprehensive and holistic vision of the problem. In this paper, a prioritization methodology based on indicators or rankings is presented. The methodology takes into account factors related to weaknesses or capabilities in all stages of risk occurrence: classroom, school, environment, and city. Physical factors are expressed by means of two indicators: structural performance level and average annual loss. Social factors are taken into account from experts opinions, and are combined by Multi- criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) method. Thus, schools are classified into different levels of priority according to their physical and social capabilities. The proposed methodology is applied to the case of public schools in Lima, Peru. The consequences of applying three risk prioritization methodologies: (1) economic loss-based approach (2) structural performance-based approach and (3) methodology proposed in this paper are compared. The comparison is done in different areas: economic losses due to structural damage, operation of schools, accessibility, suitable areas for emergency care, etc. The comparison of this approach and economical losses- based approach shows that the last one would exclude small schools with high potential of injury. Approaches based only on structural performance don’t appreciate organization and preparedness and this could be a disincentive for community participation

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