Retrofitting old buildings to comply with modern safety codes could reduce damage from earthquakes, other disasters

Following an earthquake or other disaster, attention shifts from ensuring human safety to assessing the community’s damage and planning for recovery. Older buildings don’t always meet modern safety codes, so they’re at a higher risk for damage during earthquakes. Unfortunately, recovery can take longer when older buildings are involved since they often lack modern safety features. But what if these buildings could be upgraded?

In a recent study, Dr. Maria Koliou and other Texas A&M University researchers investigated the potential benefits of retrofitting older buildings to increase their resilience against earthquakes and other disasters, creating shorter recovery times for affected communities.

The work is published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.

Researchers are using agent-based modeling to analyze a community’s needs following a seismic event. Agent-based modeling accounts for every attribute within the community to accurately simulate the response to a disaster. The shorter a community’s recovery time, the higher the level of community resilience.

In this study, agent-based modeling allows researchers to examine a wide variety of physical attributes, including buildings, components of electrical power networks, water and transportation systems, and social systems like schools, hospitals, businesses, and households. The model also includes people who live and work within the community, creating a robust simulation.

“Using agent-based modeling, we are able to simulate the response and interactions between systems and people,” said Koliou, associate professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M and holder of the Zachry Career Development Professorship II. “What we ultimately want to do is evaluate the recovery trajectory of those systems, like schools, businesses, households, over time following a strong seismic event.”

This study focuses on the impact that retrofitting residential buildings would have on community resilience. However, similar retrofits could be implemented for schools, hospitals, and other commercial buildings to increase emergency response times further.

“In this study, we followed a very generic approach where we upgraded based on building codes, but it’s definitely not one-size-fits-all,” said Koliou. “Because our standards have changed over time, we have new standards and codes to strengthen our structures with retrofits.”

Researchers are moving further by incorporating agent-based models with digital twin models of communities. Digital twins allow researchers to run simulations and implement real-time data updates during or directly following a disaster.

“We can update newly available data and rerun our simulations for timeline trajectories,” Koliou said. “By integrating digital twins with agent-based models, we can have a robust pre- and post-disaster evaluation of a community’s response to different hazards.”

Following an earthquake or other disaster, it is crucial to understand how a community responds to better prepare for a future crisis. Data from this study and others can allow stakeholders and decision-makers to explore improved ways to respond to future hazards.