Seismic Resilience of Schools in Nepal

In our latest work from team member Nicola Giordano "Financial assessment of incremental seismic retrofitting of Nepali stone-masonry buildings" (https://lnkd.in/dgaS5CJ) we have leveraged local engineering knowledge Build Change - Nepal National Society for Earthquake Technology - Nepal (NSET) and research in probabilistic loss assessment University of Bristol Engineering to develop an innovative approach for spreading retrofitting investments over time, in a gradual and cost-effective way.

Many thanks to all coauthors, especially Alastair Norris and Vibek Manandhar for co-leading this research collaboration!

Liva Shrestha, Dev R. Paudel, Natalie Quinn, Elizabeth Fay Rees, Hima Shrestha, Narayan Marasini Rajani Prajapati, Ramesh Guragain Flavia De Luca Anastasios Sextos

Project funding: Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council UNOPS, Department for International Development (DFID).

The paper is also featured on the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) - PreventionWeb platform: https://lnkd.in/dCcVaPa.

Financial assessment of incremental seismic retrofitting of Nepali stone-masonry buildings Despite its critical location, right on top of the Main Himalayan Thrust, the building stock of Nepal is mainly constituted by highly vulnerable non-e…

Check out In Situ Site Investigation Ltd. and University of Bristol Engineering CPT investigation work undertaken in Nepal as part of the SAFER project. The CPT paper is newly published and available now here: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fbuil.2021.646009/full?&utm_source=Email_to_authors_&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=T1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign=Email_publication&field=&journalName=Frontiers_in_Built_Environment&id=646009
also have a look at IN SITUs report here https://www.insitusi.com/seismic-safety-and-resilience-of-schools-in-nepal/. The SAFER dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5523/bris.1271fsyng8y2z2cjyvlss1i8d2

Many thanks to the Chinese Global TV Network and Dr Shini Somara for a wonderful documentary on our low-cost seismic isolation of buildings in developing countries.
Watch it here: https://lnkd.in/dn_y8Yy

More about our research: www.safernepal.net

Save the Children UK Save the Children in Nepal Yadav Mainali Narayan Marasini Ramesh Guragain National Society for Earthquake Technology - Nepal (NSET) Arup Prem Nath Maskey Tribhuvan University, Institute of Engineering, Pulchowk Campus Prachand Man PradhanKathmandu University, Dhulikhel University of Southampton School of Earth Sciences, Bristol University Domniki Asimaki Caltech Andreas Stavridis University at Buffalo Università Roma Tre Fuzhou University, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council University of Bristol Engineering

Earthquake resilience and vertical farming: RAZOR full episode Find out how building on sand is helping improve safety during earthquakes and the RAZOR team also investigates the future of vertical farming.

The construction of first masonry wall of the SAFER project has begun with Mehdi Kashani Engineering - University of Southampton University of Southampton Delayed due to COVID lockdowns since last year, the work has been restarted and the planned tests will be underway very soon!

Celebrating the excellent in the SAFER project team on this who including Charlotte Gilder Flavia De Luca and from Arup Vita Sanderson, Claire O’Reilly, Hayley Gryc as well as many others we work with including in our partnering organisations and within educational communities in Nepal.

The recording of Anastasios Sextos virtual talk at Workshop on Resilient Cities through Computation is now available! He spoke on "Quantifying Seismic Resilience of Infrastructure and Communities: smart tools vs pragmatic challenges Watch it now at https://micde.umich.edu/workshop-resilient-cities-2020/

Workshop on Resilient Cities through Computation Natural hazards research has evolved into highly specialized sub-disciplines, each dedicated to handling a subset of the overall problem. A key observation is that computational research is widespread in all subfields.

Submission deadline is 2 December for the Frontiers Journal Natural-hazard Risk Assessment in Developing Countries Check out the details at
https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/14589/natural-hazard-risk-assessment-in-developing-countries

Natural-hazard Risk Assessment in Developing Countries Developing countries are disproportionately affected by natural hazards and lack of coping capacities. This combination sets back progress on poverty alleviation and slows long-term development. Probabilistic risk assessment models are increasingly popular tools for estimating potential human and ec...

Happening at 14:00-15:00 GMT on Weds 11 November! Flavia presents on SAFER project at ICE South West event. Free of charge and open to all, sign up now (link below)

📢Happening TOMORROW (11 Nov).

Bristol University expert, Dr Flavia De Luca presents a free webinar on the challenges of assessing seismic vulnerabilities of schools in Nepal and other data-scarce environments.

Book now: https://www.ice.org.uk/events/seismic-vulnerability-nepal-schools-webinar

SAFER team congratulate Ted Cross on the publication of his first journal paper Mapping the seismic safety of RC "template schools" in Nepal in International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction and in collaboration with Pahar Trust Nepal Read it now here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212420920313467?via%3Dihub

Mapping the seismic safety of RC "template schools" in Nepal

Ramamohan Pokhrel from SAFER team delivered a presentation for the Institute of Himalayan Risk Reduction entitled "Importance of optimising geodatabase on developing countries and its application for disaster mitigation strategies" You can access the recording and more details at
https://inhrr.org/2020/08/17/importance-of-optimizing-geodatabase-for-developing-countries-and-its-application-for-disaster-mitigation-strategies/

Importance of optimizing geodatabase for developing countries and its application for disaster mitigation strategies – IHRR

SAFER team member Flavia De Luca will present on "Assessing the seismic vulnerability of schools in Nepal" at the forthcoming Institution of Civil Engineers webinar. Taking place 14:00-15:00 UK time on 11 November. Sign up now at https://www.ice.org.uk/events/seismic-vulnerability-nepal-schools-webinar

Assessing the seismic vulnerability of schools in Nepal, webinar Flavia De Luca, expert in Structural and Earthquake Engineering, presents a webinar on the challenges of assessing seismic vulnerabilities of schools in Nepal and other data-scarce environments.

Check out presentations from SAFER partners and team now available at http://www.safernepal.net/workshopbristol2020.html and SIGN UP NOW to join the online webinar event on Wednesday to engage with us and hear more from stakeholders and partners about impact, challenges and next steps

Ramesh Guragain National Society for Earthquake Technology - Nepal (NSET) Prem Nath Maskey Tribhuvan University Prachand Man Pradhan Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel Yadav Mainali Save the Children in Nepal Save the Children UK Vita Sanderson Arup Andreas Stavridis University at Buffalo Mehdi Kashani University of Southampton Flavia De Luca Nicola Giordano Charlotte Gilder Raffaele De Risi, Paul Vardanega Parajuli Rishi Ramamohan Pokhrel Max Werner, Jitendra Agarwal University of Bristol Engineering Cabot Institute for the Environment School of Earth Sciences, Bristol University

WorkshopBristol2020 Featuring innovative research outcomes, evaluation & next steps with opinions and summaries from key international partners & stakeholders.

Nepalis Lead Recovery and Build Resilience Five years after the Gorkha earthquake, Nepali experts are at the forefront of building a self-reliant Nepal

After three years of exciting research with our international partners we are delighted to invite you to our final dissemination Webinar on September 16th. We will be showcasing the new soil database and seismic hazard model for Nepal, smart tools for structural health of schools and assessment, as well as large scale tests on new low cost seismic isolation methods. Presentations will be followed by a round table with stakeholders and key experts on how to make schools in Nepal safer.

Registation: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/seismic-safety-and-resilience-of-schools-in-nepal-workshop-tickets-111124973788

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6AxkLOrAak&feature=youtu.be

University of Southampton, National Society for Earthquake Technology - Nepal (NSET), Arup, Save the Children UK
Save the Children, Nepal, University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, University of Bristol, University of Bristol Engineering, School of Earth Sciences, Bristol University, Fuzhou University, Mehdi Kashani Ramesh Guragain, Narayan Marasini, Yadav Mainali, Prachand Man Pradhan, Prem Nath Maskey, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu University, Parajuli Rishi, Flavia De Luca, Nicola Giordano, Charlotte Gilder, Anastasios Sextos Research Group

How University of Bristol Engineers are saving lives in Nepal Earthquake Engineers and Earth Scientists from the University of Bristol have been working with local experts, governments, and NGOs in Nepal to develop ways...

An early start for SAFER team member Nicola Giordano as he presented in the first session at the National Reconstruction Authority Web based 'National Symposium on Nepal's Reconstruction (NSNR-2020)' A special thanks to the organisers and participants of today's session on structural engineering/retrofitting! You can watch here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=332658721111498&extid=L3FTJdl9rnm1JKbR Build Change - Nepal National Society for Earthquake Technology - Nepal (NSET)

Shout out on to our talented and accomplished female engineers who are such valuable team members on the SAFER project helping to Flavia De Luca Charlotte Gilder Maria Xanthou Vita Sanderson Claire OReilly Hayley Gryc Arup University of Bristol Engineering

With the current lockdown, SAFER activities are continuing in online mode. This morning, SAFER team member Nicola Giordano has met with civil engineering students at Politecnico di Milano to talk about vulnerability and probabilistic risk assessment in the context of Nepal

The SAFER workshop has been postponed for now and we will update with new date in due course.

How can we quantify the economic benefit of seismic retrofitting? How can we prioritise investments in retrofitting to increase the resilience of urban and rural communities? In the last progress meeting organized by SAFER team member Nicola Giordano, we have discussed with National Society for Earthquake Technology - Nepal (NSET) and Build Change - Nepal technical challenges and costs of retrofitting in the context of Nepal.
Here are some pictures from the meeting hosted by National Society for Earthquake Technology - Nepal (NSET).

Nicola Giordano is in rural Nepal where technical issues are strongly interconnected with sociocultural aspects. Last week we observed this in Nuwakot, where Build Change - Nepal is implementing retrofitting on traditional stone masonry buildings.

Parajuli Rishi has been in Nepal
with our project partners Save the Children UK and the children in Nepal over the last few days engaging with school community and working together on developing the mobile app

Here's SAFER team member Flavia De Luca presenting SAFER project at the Engineers Without Borders event this afternoon https://facebook.com/events/537558426821289/?ti=icl

The experimental campaign on out-of-plane assessment of traditional stone-masonry walls is proceeding very well at the National Society for Earthquake Technology - Nepal (NSET) - NSET in Kathmandu! Here's a picture from the test site!

Students engagement at several schools in Nepal filling in the SAFER questionnaire. Their input and that of other stakeholders helps to inform us about resilience of the educational community. The students, teachers, school senior management teams and parents engaged with Parajuli Rishi and our partners from Save the Children in Nepal Save the Children UK during the recent visit to Nepal.

Here is Ted Cross presenting SAFER work at http://seced.org.uk/index.php/seced-2019?fbclid=IwAR0r2uW6fJTQruPP8r7I8q5AXFlV4siFXe55gGt7OR-REYx8Id8IKjWsNDk

SAFER team member Flavia De Luca along with Dr Galasso and Dr Monteiro chaired a session at entitled Risk assessment in developing countries http://seced.org.uk/index.php/seced-2019?fbclid=IwAR0r2uW6fJTQruPP8r7I8q5AXFlV4siFXe55gGt7OR-REYx8Id8IKjWsNDk

Charlotte Gilder presenting work from SAFER project at https://www.ecsmge-2019.com/ #

More excellent images from Parajuli Rishi ongoing field work in Nepal with partners Save the Children in Nepal: Educational community engagement in Dailekh

Some pics of the Students' summit at Surkhet, Nepal, 25 and 26 August attended by Parajuli Rishi of which SAFER project is one of the organisers along with several of our partners including National Society for Earthquake Technology - Nepal (NSET) and Save the Children in Nepal Save the Children UK.

Parajuli Rishi is in Nepal with our partners Save the Children in Nepal Save the Children UK engaging with school communities in Sinhupalchok and Kavre about educational community resilience

Parajuli Rishi from the SAFER team is in the lovely Newcastle-upon-Tyne attending the DwD-GCRF-UKADR-DRG-UKCDR International Conference, 2019 hosted by Northumbria University Details of the conference are at http://www.ukadr.org/conference2019.html and photos of him delivering his paper on Friday to follow!

We were delighted to host a seminar delivered here at University of Bristol for interested academics, students and external organisations by our National Society for Earthquake Technology - Nepal (NSET) partners Ramesh Guragain and Narayan Marasini We really enjoyed your visit - presentations will be posted here in the forthcoming days

This amazing portable rig from In Situ Site Investigation Ltd. is being used for important geotechnical investigations at various sites during the SAFER field mission to add to our understanding of the soil structure for seismic hazard. We have done CPTs and seismic testing in this 'groundbreaking' set up which could only be achieved by this much valued collaboration with Darren Ward CEO of In Situ Site Investigation Ltd.

We are delighted to have been joined this week by Andreas Stavridis our colleague from University at Buffalo who has been engaging with us on our earthquake shake table tests