The World Housing Encyclopedia Online Database: a Resource on Housing Construction Practices in Earthquake Regions

Abstract eng:
The World Housing Encyclopedia (WHE) online database constitutes over 160 housing reports from 44 seismically active regions of the world. The WHE development efforts have been primarily supported by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) as well as the International Association of Earthquake Engineering (IAEE) since its inception in 2000. The database is the result of an enormous amount of volunteered time and expertise provided by engineering professionals from around the world. Each report contains an in-depth description of a specific housing typology within a given region or a country, which is described by the more than 150 attributes/features. The attribute information captured through each report falls into six broad categories: general information, structural features, construction process, socioeconomics, earthquake performance, and retrofitting techniques. In 2013, the WHE housing report database was updated to an interactive web-based online system giving users more flexibility in accessing the reports. The new system allows users to search all reports by keywords and to filter the list of reports by specific attributes. Additionally, each report now contains high-resolution images showing typical housing construction, structural details, building plans (if available), and access to photos of typical building performance after earthquakes. The repository now serves as a valuable tool for understanding the exposure of physical building assets, their structural and occupancy characteristics and further informs better selection of vulnerability models for the estimation of earthquake-induced losses after an earthquake, e.g., the U.S. Geological Survey’s Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) system (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/data/pager/) or the efforts related to the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) development (http://www.globalquakemodel.org/). The online database further enables quick access to detailed engineering information and lessons related to earthquake-resistant design and construction. This paper elaborates on a broad coverage of these reports, various new features of the online database, and discusses how the engineering information contained within each report can be used to improve construction practices in areas with vulnerable housing construction types.

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