GLOSI taxonomy: A tool for ‘seismic risk assessment’ oriented classification of school buildings

For the seismic vulnerability and risk assessment of school infrastructure in a region, it becomes necessary first to identify and classify these constructions into a distinct number of structural typologies characterised by their vulnerability features. This enables us to rank the expected vulnerability of different typologies at the initial screening stage as well as to characterise the representative index buildings of different typologies for detailed vulnerability quantification. Currently, a systematic and comprehensive taxonomy tailored for the school buildings is not available. The present paper thus develops a globally applicable structural taxonomy to be used in the seismic risk assessment of school infrastructure within the framework of the Global Program for Safer Schools (GPSS) of the World Bank. Application as well as verification of the proposed taxonomy is tested to a range of school construction types from different countries across the world.