EGU22-5892, updated on 06 Feb 2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-5892
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Seismic retrofit policies and their effectiveness for rural earthen dwellings in China: lessons from the Yunnan Province case study

Yaan Wang1,2, Ming Wang3, Kai Liu3, and Carmine Galasso1,4
Yaan Wang et al.
  • 1Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, University College London, London, UK
  • 2School of Civil and Transportation Engineering, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing, China
  • 3School of National Safety and Emergency Management, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
  • 4Centro di Formazione e Ricerca per la Mitigazione del Rischio Sismico (ROSE), Scuola Universitaria Superiore (IUSS) Pavia, Pavia, Italy

Earthen dwellings are highly vulnerable to earthquake-induced ground shaking and are widely distributed in earthquake-prone and underdeveloped rural areas in the Yunnan Province, China. In the past 30 years, 78 earthquakes with a surface-wave magnitude (Mw) greater than 5.0 struck Yunnan Province, with rural earthen dwellings contributing the most to casualties and building damages. In recent years, national and local governments in China promulgated various seismic retrofit and risk mitigation policies for rural areas, along with seismic retrofit techniques gradually being implemented in practice.

This presentation will review policies and seismic retrofit techniques for rural earthen dwellings in Yunnan Province, discussing their seismic mitigation effectiveness based on a post-disaster field survey of the Mw 6.1 Yangbi earthquake in May 2021 and other historical earthquake disaster data. Comparisons of (1) the damage states of earthen dwellings with and without retrofit; and (2) statistical damage data of earthen dwellings during the Yangbi earthquake and historical earthquakes are analyzed and discussed in detail.

The analysis results show that the seismic retrofit measures effectively mitigated the seismic effect on rural earthen dwellings and greatly improved rural communities' resilience. Lessons learned are highlighted, and recommendations from the study are finally proposed.

How to cite: Wang, Y., Wang, M., Liu, K., and Galasso, C.: Seismic retrofit policies and their effectiveness for rural earthen dwellings in China: lessons from the Yunnan Province case study, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-5892, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-5892, 2022.