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Earthquake damage assessment

using satellite data.


Waheed Ahmad Khan1, Fabio DELLACQUA2, Diego Aldo POLLI2,
National Engineering Services (NESPAK) Pvt. Ltd. Lahore, Pakistan
2
IUSS (Istituto Universitario Studi Superiori), I-27100 Pavia ITALY

Abstract. Earthquake disaster, as well as other natural disasters,


represents the challenges for earth observation systems to demonstrate
their usefulness in supporting intervention and relief actions.
Undertaking damage notification and assessment for large areas is very
expensive; consequently for emergency intervention, it is important to
identify the damaged areas. Automated earthquake damage assessment
from post-event only remotely sensed data is highly desirable, especially
when new generation, Very High Resolution (VHR) spacing Radar data
is concerned, lacking extensive pre-event archives. Though, most
damage assessment method either rely on human interpretation or on
pre-post even comparison. In this research work, studies on the 6th April
2009 earthquake event, which stroke LAquila, Italy and on the 12th
January 2010 earthquake event, Port-au-Prince, Haiti are considered. The
objective of this study is to develop an improved method to assess the
earthquake damage by the use of very high resolution images and make
some actual texture damage correlations, and to determine whether it
was effective to change the partitioning strategy from the previous
works.
Keywords: Very High Resolution (VHR), Synthetic Aperture Radar
(SAR), seismic damage assessment, post-event only.
Introduction
A natural disaster is an event caused by natural forces of nature that often has a significant
effect on human beings socially as well as financially. Typically the human populations either
are displaced (left homeless) or killed as a result of natural disaster. Earthquake is one of the
natural and also dangerous disasters. Earthquake motion is caused by the quick release of
stored potential energy and its conversion into kinetic energy of motion. Most earthquakes are
occurring along the faults, tectonic plate boundary zones, or long the mid-oceanic ridges. The
prevention of earthquakes is impossible with todays knowledge and technologies, but by
utilization of advanced techniques, minimizing the losses as a result of earthquake and quick
rehabilitation and quick damage assessment is possible. For detecting the changes as a result
of earthquake is possible by using the remote sensing technique, Image rationing and image
differencing are the frequently used methods in change detection applied in post-Earthquake
damage assessment studies. There are also several other techniques such as digital image
classification and texture analysis to detect the damage caused by an earthquake. Besides,

various kinds of data sources are available to be used in the post-earthquake damage
assessment studies, which are night time imagery, optical imagery, radar imagery, aerial
photography, aerial video imagery and airborne MSS imagery.Satellite remote sensing can be
very useful instrument to help the decision chain of the civil protection authorities after the
earthquake.
Rapid impact assessment after a catastrophic event is crucial for initiating effective emergency
response actions. Remote sensing satellites equipped with very high spatial resolution (VHR)
optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging sensors can provide important information
about the affected areas since they can map the regions of interest quickly, with a high
geometric precision, and in an uncensored manner.
Objective
The aim of this work is to develop an improved method to assess the earthquake damage by
the use of very high resolution images and make some actual texture damage correlations, and
to determine whether it was effective to change the partitioning strategy from the previous
works. This approach is implemented in a selected urban area of the Italy, LAquila, which
was one of the urban areas most strongly affected in Earthquake on 6th April 2009.
Methodology
The first step in this method was to decide the criteria on the basis to assess the damage by the
earthquake by the remote sensing technique. We had different option on the basis of which we
could classify the observing area like;
1. Type of Building (R.C.C or Masonry)
2. Height of building (Number of Stories)
3. Type of roofing
Option of dividing the area on the basis of height of building was selected because there were
some ambiguities in classifying the area on the basis of type of building like we cannot be
sure about the type of building as from the images it cannot be possible to detect whether it is
reinforced building or masonry building or confined masonry building or composite building.
Classifying the area on the basis of number of stories (number of slabs) by looking through
the Google earth tool to all the possible views needed to classify the area on the basis of
number of stories, to make the end result reliable. Vacant spaces are not included while
dividing the area (roads, parks, unconstructed areas) to make the result more accurate. There
are some areas where the buildings stories are not exactly equal (just few were of different
height), those area are classified on the basis of majority of building stories. There are also
some parts in cities where buildings are of different heights, and it was not possible to divide
the area on the basis of one building classification, therefore these area are did by seeing that
what was the minimum height of building in that area of most of the buildings, and then
divide that area by saying that in this area all the buildings are equal or higher then this

number of stories. Different polygons have given different colour to differentiate among the
areas representing the height of building as shown in below figure. Different coloured sub
divided area shows the different height areas, like red area means the three storey buildings
area and so on.

Figure 1-Partition of City LAquila into Blocks

Correlations
SAR images are affected by speckle noise, so a good technique to extract information is the
use of texture measures. In fact with this method we do not consider the value of single pixel,
but the response of groups of pixels; moreover texture measures are believed to reflect to
some extent the difference in expected distribution of backscattered intensities between
orderly non damaged buildings and scrambled, heavily damaged buildings. The correlation
between the specific number of stories and the damaged area was developed and different
combinations were made to find out the best correlation.
Two approaches were used to develop some correlation between the damaged areas with
respect to building height for the LAquila city explained below.
First Approach
In the first approach, the correlation between the specific number of stories and the damaged
area was developed and different combinations were made to find out the best correlation and
the result as shown in the Table 1 and Table 2.

Texture

without

with classification(number of stories)

Values

classificat
ion

1,2

3,4,5

1,2,3

4,5

1,2,3,
4

1,2,3,4,
5

6,7

-0.30

-0.41

-0.26

-0.46

0.06

-0.29

-0.13

-0.30

-0.13

Contrast
Dissimilari
ty

0.27

0.41

0.22

0.42

-0.06

0.27

0.11

0.27

0.11

0.31

0.45

0.26

0.46

-0.06

0.31

0.13

0.31

0.13

Entropy
Homogene
ity

0.37

0.46

0.33

0.52

-0.01

0.35

0.20

0.37

0.20

-0.33

-0.43

-0.29

-0.44

0.02

-0.32

-0.12

-0.33

-0.12

Correlatio
n

Mean
Second
Moment

0.23

0.18

0.23

0.23

0.05

0.19

0.25

0.23

0.25

-0.37

-0.46

-0.33

-0.53

0.00

-0.36

-0.19

-0.37

-0.19

Variance

0.23

0.38

0.19

0.32

-0.08

0.20

0.05

0.22

0.05

Table 1 Correlation between texture measures and DAR of different storey buildings
(19 angle view)

with classification(number of stories)


1,2,3
1,2,3,4,
3,4,5
1,2,3
4,5
,4
5
5

without
classificati
on

1,2

Correlation

-0.12

-0.13

-0.14

-0.16

-0.17

-0.16

0.08

-0.10

0.08

Contrast
Dissimilarit
y

0.04

0.00

0.07

0.02

0.14

0.03

-0.14

0.02

-0.14

0.08

0.04

0.10

0.08

0.15

0.07

-0.09

0.06

-0.09

Entropy
Homogeneit
y

0.11

0.05

0.13

0.09

0.16

0.12

-0.06

0.09

-0.06

-0.13

-0.13

-0.13

-0.17

-0.11

-0.12

-0.02

-0.11

-0.02

Mean
Second
Moment

-0.18

-0.22

-0.16

-0.19

0.02

-0.13

-0.17

-0.18

-0.17

-0.16

-0.12

-0.17

-0.13

-0.17

-0.16

0.00

-0.14

0.00

Variance

-0.01

-0.13

0.04

-0.06

0.20

0.07

-0.20

-0.01

-0.20

Table 2 Correlation between texture measures and DAR of different storey buildings
(50 angle view)

6,7

As shown in Table 1 and Table 2, the strong correlation between the texture values and DAR
exists when the view angle is 19. And the strongest correlation exists for the Entropy among
the texture values for all the combination of stories.
In Table 1, it can be seen that results are not linearly changing with respect to the number of
stories, the values are scattered though it gives higher correlation value with the classification

Second Approach for LAquila


In this approach, effort was made to develop some relationship of earthquake damage with
the number of storeys of building which was our assumption of research.
Total area was divided on the basis of number of stories in the city as shown in figure 1. As
the area calculated by analysing the polygons on GIS, area of each polygon was obtained and
calculated with respect to the particular classification as shown in the Table 3. To make the
correlation between the number of stories and the damage, percentage of each area with
respect to total area was calculated and in similar way the damaged to the particular area with
respect to the total area was calculated as shown in Table 3.
Percentage of
total area
(%)=(100*A/B)

Damaged
portion
(%)=C=(damag
ed area/B)

Damage on
basis of
building height
(%)=(100*C/D)

206286

11.75

0.38

5.48

storey 2

303586

17.30

1.21

17.55

storey 3

562034

32.02

4.59

66.57

storey 4

438114

24.96

0.64

9.32

storey 5
Total area of
observation(
B)

245053

13.96

0.07

1.08

175507
3

100.00

D=6.90

100.00

No. of
Stories

Area(A)

storey 1

Table 2 Damaged area with respect to Total area of observation

After calculating the damaged area with respect to the total area of observation, correlation
was developed between them (correlation value was 0.834). As can be seen in Table 3 that
area is increasing up to 3 storeys and then it decreases and again increases. Its clear from the
result that the damaged area is directly proportional to the area and not dependent on the
area of classification.

CONCLUSION
Two approaches were used to assess earthquake damage from post event images with respect
to the building heights in LAquila city. In the first approach, our aim was to test whether a
correlation between texture and damage could be made stronger by restricting the entire
sample set to specialized subsets (subsets were made on the basis of number of stories); e.g.
is the texture-damage correlation stronger if we compute it only on 1-storey buildings? And
by analysis we found that a very strong correlation is developed if we consider only subset of
1-storey.
While in the second approach relationship of earthquake damage with the number of storeys
of building was developed.
From the results obtained using approach one, it seems clear that there is no relationship
between the texture values corresponding to building height (There is no linear relationship,
which can be seen in Table 1 and Table 2). But if we see the result we can found that if
sample of buildings was restricted to 1-storey buildings only, we get a much higher
correlation between one texture measure and the damage extent, than the other. By seeing the
results it can be commented that if the sample is distributed uniformly we get better results in
term of correlations rather than classification.
From the results of second approach, it can be said also that there is almost linear relationship
between the sub area and the damaged area i-e if the area is increased under observation,
damage portion is increased(as can be seen in Table 3), means that classification on the basis
of storey height doesnt make any affect.
The results obtained from the analysis seems to be understandable as its not only the building
height which affects the damage quantity, other factors, like the distance from the fault line,
soil properties, type of building, type of foundation are also the important factors in assessing
the damaged area . And all these factors vary, so therefore the damage quantity. So it seems
better to assess the earthquake damage without classification on the basis of number of
storeys, because we get good correlation value in that case for the Entropy.

REFERENCES
Anne-Lise Chesnel and Renaud Binet Urban damage assessment using multimodal
QuickBird images and ancillary data: the Bam and the Boumerdes earthquakes D
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available online at:http://tlc.unipv.it/6_RSDMA/Finals/1.3%20-%20Chesnel.pdf.
Syed Jamil Hasan Kazmi On The Use of Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques in
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Geography,University
of
Karachi,
Pakistan,
available
online
at:
www.merci.ethz.ch/Workshop/Presentations/Kazmi_Paper.pdf
Shunsuke Otani Seismic Vulnerability Assessment Methods for Buildings in Japan
Department of Architecture, Graduate School of Engineering, University of Tokyo Japan
available online at www.ctsee.org.tw/pdf/ee0202/ee0202-5.pdf.
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available online at:
http://www.adpc.net/casita/Course%20Modules/Earthquake%20vulnerability%20reduction
%20for%20cities/EVRC0301A_Earthquake_Vulnerability.pdf.

Polli, DellAcqua, Gamba, : Earthquake damage assessment from post-event only radar
satellite data, 8th / RSDMA/ workshop, Tokyo , 30th September-1st October 2010.

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